


Julianna's Legacy

by Crunchysunrises



Category: Anita Blake: Vampire Hunter - Laurell K. Hamilton, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Anita Blake
Genre: Community: cottoncandy_bingo, Community: hc_bingo, Community: wishlist_fic, Crossover, Crossover Pairings, F/M, Gen, M/M, Memories, Memory Magic, Memory Related, Twisting The Hellmouth, Vampire Slayer(s), Vampires, Were-Creatures
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-01
Updated: 2012-12-11
Packaged: 2017-11-19 23:59:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 21,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/579055
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crunchysunrises/pseuds/Crunchysunrises
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspired by Xander, Buffy takes a road trip of her own. Along the way, she rides on trains, hitchhikes, picks up the odd job, and makes new friends... whether she wants them or not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Beginning

**Author's Note:**

  * For [xgirl2222](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=xgirl2222).



> **Content Notes:** graphic depictions of violence  
>  **Disclaimer:** I have no rights to or within the Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Anita Blake franchises, copyrights, characters or trademarks. This is for fun, not profit.  
>  **Additional Notes:** This fic fills [](http://xgirl2222.dreamwidth.org/profile)[](http://xgirl2222.dreamwidth.org/)**xgirl2222** 's prompt for Wishlist 2012 which I interpreted to mean a Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Anita Blake crossover with a parting, a meeting, and Asher, Jean-Claude, and Buffy. Also fills the "unrequited pining" square on my Hurt/Comfort Bingo card and the "Headache" square on my Cotton Candy Bingo card. Also answers Challenge #6910 (Play by the Rules) and Challenge #4842 (Vampires' Superiority Complex) on the Twisting the Hellmouth Website and partially answers the TTH100_2 Challenge.

**001\. Beginning**

As with all things in Sunnydale, it began innocently enough. When Xander announced his decision to go on a road trip, an odd sort of longing took root in Buffy’s heart. It took her three nights of fruitless patrolling to figure it out.

“Mom?” Buffy asked over dinner. “I think I’d like to take a road trip. Y’know, get out and see the world while I’m still – while I’m still young.”

Panic flashed over her mother’s soft, expressive features before her mother schooled her expression. Her tone very careful, she said, “Buffy, I don’t know if now’s the right time for that sort of thing.”

“If not now, then when?” Buffy said as she quickly marshaled her arguments. With each point that she made, she very emphatically lifted a finger. “Apocalypse season is over so things have been really dead around here – sadly, no pun intended. It’s summer. I’ve got no summer assignments this year. And I’m alive and whole. There’s no better time.”

Her mother pursed her lips. “But the expense–”

“I have some money saved,” Buffy said eagerly, remembering her father’s graduation gift and the wad of cash stuffed under her mattress, a remnant from her time as Anne in L.A.

“It’s dangerous!”

“Slayer!”

Her mother flinched, the color draining out of her complexion. Buffy refused to feel guilty.

_I am what I am. And I’m the Slayer with everything that comes with it._

After a long, tense moment, her mother slowly nodded. She suddenly looked five years older.

“Where would you go?”

“New York City!”Buffy said eagerly, snatching Xander’s original destination out of the recesses of her mind.

“How would you get there?”

“By bus!” Buffy blurted. Truthfully, before that moment at the table, she just knew that she wanted to leave and see somewhere, anywhere, before her destiny caught up with her. “Or by train! Then I won’t have to drive!”

“And we’d all be very grateful for that,” her mother said with a faint smile. She hesitated and then asked, “You’ll call?”

“Every night!”

“And you’ll be careful?”

“Always!”

“And you really want to do this?”

“Really and definitely.”

“Then I suppose I can buy your tickets there and back, as a graduation gift,” her mother sighed.

Buffy yelped then lunged at her mother for a hug. “Thank you!”

"Try to remember how much I love you," Buffy's mother murmured, her hug as tight as any human could hug someone else without actually trying to squash that other person’s organs. "And how much I’ll miss you."

Giles was not nearly so understanding of Buffy’s sudden desire to travel.

“You simply cannot leave Sunnydale,” Giles said, while cleaning his glasses furiously. “Your destiny is here.”

“And I want to see some of the world before my destiny leaves me permanently stuck six feet under here,” Buffy said, holding her huge black duffle bag so that it dangled over one shoulder. “It’ll only be for a few weeks.”

Oz nodded, seemingly content with that logic. Willow, who was standing within the circle of his arms, nodded encouragingly. Giles, who had blanched at the reference to her short expiration date, drew himself up. Rather stiffly, he said, “Nevertheless I must insist that you stay in town and available, in case anything important comes up.”

“B-But we’ve just finished Apocalypse season, right Buffy?” Willow interjected quickly. “So it’s probably pretty boring right now.”

“Deadly dull. I haven’t seen anything worthwhile since just before graduation,” Buffy said, shooting Willow a grateful look. “I haven’t even staked anything since graduation.”

“And if anything turns up, we’ll handle it,” Oz added bracingly.

“I’m going to call home every night,” Buffy added. “So I’ll only be a phone call away.”

“And travel time,” Giles said, frowning.

“Well, yes.Sadly, flying wasn’t in the Slayer package.” Buffy grimaced. “That’d be hell on the secret identity thing.”

“But very, very cool,” Willow threw in, her eyes lighting up. “And useful! You could’ve given us rides to school.”

Buffy grinned.

“When do you leave?” Oz asked, eying Buffy’s duffle.

Buffy startled then glanced at her wristwatch. “In an hour!”

“What?” demanded her Watcher even as Willow hurried forward for hugs and well wishes. “Buffy, you cannot be so rash –”

Giles yelped when Buffy’s gave him a quick, hard hug. In his ear, she murmured, “I’ll see you when I get back, Giles.”

“Don’t worry about him,” Willow whispered as she hustled Buffy and Oz toward the door. Behind them, Giles was sputtering something about Buffy being completely unprepared for the world outside of Sunnydale. “We’ll get him un-ruffled. You know Giles. He’s just a worrywart. Have fun! Stay safe!”

“You too!” Buffy blurted as Willow hugged her again and then shoved Buffy and Oz out the door. A moment later, Buffy found herself on Giles’ doorstep, staring at his closed door. Oz touched her shoulder with just his fingertips, drawing Buffy's attention to himself.

“Want a ride?”

“To the train station?”

“Wherever.”

Buffy grinned. “If I’d known you were going to say that, I would’ve tried to talk you into coming with me.”

“Live and learn.”


	2. Magazine

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Content Notes:** graphic depictions of violence  
>  **Disclaimer:** I have no rights to or within the Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Anita Blake franchises, copyrights, characters or trademarks. This is for fun, not profit.  
>  **Additional Notes:** This fic fills [](http://xgirl2222.dreamwidth.org/profile)[](http://xgirl2222.dreamwidth.org/)**xgirl2222** 's prompt for Wishlist 2012 which I interpreted to mean a Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Anita Blake crossover with a parting, a meeting, and Asher, Jean-Claude, and Buffy. Also fills the "unrequited pining" square on my Hurt/Comfort Bingo card and the "Headache" square on my Cotton Candy Bingo card. Also answers Challenge #6910 (Play by the Rules) and Challenge #4842 (Vampires' Superiority Complex) on the Twisting the Hellmouth Website and partially answers the TTH100_2 Challenge.

**014\. Magazine**

Buffy was surprised that Oz actually waited for the train with her. Even more surprising was the way that he fidgeted and started sentences only to peter off into silence.

“Geez. Spit it out already.” When Oz startled then quirked an eyebrow at her, Buffy added, “It’s really, really obvious that you’re trying to tell me something that I won’t like.”

Oz laughed. It was not a happy sound.

“It’s not just that you won’t like it. It’s that you won’t believe it unless you see it for yourself. When you get about a hundred miles outside of Sunnydale, read some newspapers and magazines. Watch the news.”

“Oz, this whole mystery-guy thing so isn’t your thing.”

He smiled but when he gripped her right hand, there was a sense of urgency to the gesture.

“I’m serious, Buffy. Promise me that you’ll do this before you do anything or slay anything else.” When she hesitated he added, “This is the most important thing I’ll ever ask of you.”

“Okay,” Buffy promised, nodding slowly. She grimaced. “This is going to turn out to be some sort of strange ‘only on the Hellmouth’ sort of thing, isn’t it?”

When Oz nodded, Buffy sighed.

They stood in companionable silence until the train arrived. Buffy was unsure what Oz was thinking about, but she was busy wondering if she had been living in a time warp or a lost town without ever knowing it. She was also wondering where a woman three feet down the platform had gotten her shoes. They were red and adorable and completely unsuitable for slaying. They were, in a word, perfect.

When the train pulled into the station, Oz gave her a quick, hard hug. Buffy pretended not to notice the way he sniffed her throat or slipped a wadded up something or other into her left pocket. Werewolves, she had discovered, were secretly just as big on the worrying as Watchers. They just hid it better. Or maybe that was just Oz.

When she was on the train, Buffy discovered that Oz had slipped her fifty dollars and a scrap of paper with his phone number on it with the word ‘emergencies’ scribbled underneath.

_Worrier,_ she thought fondly.

Buffy spent the first hundred miles alternating between watching the scenery zip by and drooling over her favorite clothes and weapons’ catalogues. Stakes were easy to make and generally cheap but not everything could be killed by eight to ten inches of solid wood. And her line of work was definitely death-to-clothes.

In Arizona, Buffy got off the train long enough to buy a fistful of magazines and newspapers. When she got back on the train, Buffy went straight for the dining car where she ordered a mocha frappachino and a pastry. Then she glanced through her purchases.

VAMPIRES NOW PUSHING FOR THE VOTE!

WHICH MASTER VAMPIRE IS THE SEXIEST IN AMERICA? CAST YOUR VOTE!

That second caption, which was on the cover of a women’s magazine that Buffy had been quite fond of before the initial move to Sunnydale, broke Buffy’s brain. With a small cry, she dropped everything into the seat next to her and pressed the palm of one head against her poor forehead.

_I’ve left sanity behind and entered the twilight zone… and Oz knew it would happen! Does Giles know about this? Does Willow? Xander?_

It was a long time before Buffy could even bring herself to think about Vampires voting or running for office or taking part in popularity polls. When she could finally bring herself to look at her purchases, she flipped through them and just read the headlines. Then she went back and very slowly began to read through them.

_I’ve got to figure out how everything went so wrong!_

Later that afternoon, when Buffy was deeply absorbed in glaring at a recently ordered chicken sandwich, someone cleared his throat at her. Buffy blinked up at a dark-haired man. He smiled and asked, “Can I share your table? All of the other seats appear to be taken.”

Buffy looked around the car – it was much fuller than when she sat down – then nodded at the stranger. He slid into the seat across from her.

“I’m Mark,” he said as he flagged down a waiter and ordered a hamburger.

“Buffy.”

He choked on a laugh. Buffy glared. Oblivious, Mark prattled on about his job as an investor and his mother and some vampire’s slim chances of getting elected to the senate. If nothing else, his presence ensured that Buffy quickly finished her sandwich.

“Excuse me,” Buffy said as she grabbed her bottle of water and rose.

“Aw, don’t go. We were just getting friendly.”

Buffy arched an eyebrow. “I’m getting up early in the morning.”

It was a blatant lie – Buffy never got up early – but it gave her the opening that she needed to desert Mark quickly and with as little fuss as possible. In her compartment, Buffy stepped over her duffle bag on her way to her narrow bed. Still dressed, she curled up on it with her wrinkled newspapers and creased magazines and thought forlornly, _In a world like this, who needs a Slayer?_

  



	3. Hear

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Content Notes:** graphic depictions of violence  
>  **Disclaimer:** I have no rights to or within the Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Anita Blake franchises, copyrights, characters or trademarks. This is for fun, not profit.  
>  **Additional Notes:** This fic fills [](http://xgirl2222.dreamwidth.org/profile)[](http://xgirl2222.dreamwidth.org/)**xgirl2222** 's prompt for Wishlist 2012 which I interpreted to mean a Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Anita Blake crossover with a parting, a meeting, and Asher, Jean-Claude, and Buffy. Also fills the "unrequited pining" square on my Hurt/Comfort Bingo card and the "Headache" square on my Cotton Candy Bingo card. Also answers Challenge #6910 (Play by the Rules) and Challenge #4842 (Vampires' Superiority Complex) on the Twisting the Hellmouth Website and partially answers the TTH100_2 Challenge.

**033\. Hear**

Buffy snapped into awareness, her Slayer senses tingling. All around her, vampires were blinking into existence. Soon enough, she could hear voices cheerfully greeting the vampires and throaty moans. The tang of blood perfumed the air.

_What the hell is going on?_ Buffy thought groggily as she rooted through her duffle bag for the sword. _They weren’t there when I went to sleep!_

When her hand closed around her sword's hilt, Buffy's tired mind cleared enough for her to remember an ad from one of the newspapers, asking for blood donors to call a certain number. The graphic of a fanged smile next to the print sort of implied that the ad had not been run by the Red Cross.

Buffy sighed.

_I wonder if the vamps bring their own snacks or the train provides willing donors._ Buffy’s upper lip curled as she remembered a group of desperate, unhappy teenagers. _These vamps don’t seem very lonely._

She flopped back onto her rack.

_I’m never going to get used to this. How could all of this have happened since I stopped being Anne? Why didn’t Giles or Willow tell me when the vampires started getting rights? Don’t they know that slaying is illegal in the United States without a warrant of execution? Or is there a Slayer clause?_

Tired and uncertain, Buffy wedged her sheathed blade between the side of the rack and the wall and then willed herself to go back to sleep. It was impossible. She was surrounded by vampires and lycanthropes, their essences pressing against her senses and keeping her alert. Buffy's muscles twitched with the urge to get up and slay those vampires.

Resigned to being awake, Buffy lay in her rack and examined the vampires around her. Like the vampires in Sunnydale, the oldest ones rolled through her senses like thunder while the younger ones hummed like cicadas on a hot summer afternoon. The odd thing, though, was the sense that the vampires had souls. Their very real and very attached souls fluttered against her senses like the trembling of butterfly wings.

_How can they all have souls? I thought that Angel’s soul made him unique. Special. So they can’t all have them. But... They do. And the werewolves... don't all feel like werewolves. Some of them feel... I don't know... different._

Oz was the only lycanthrope that Buffy had ever had extensive dealings with so it was something of a shock to realize that at least half of the signatures that Buffy had originally assumed to be lycanthropes were... something else. Whatever they were, they lacked the cool, crisp feel that Oz’s essence possessed even at the height of summer. But they were similar enough that Buffy was fairly sure that they changed into something during the full moon. There was a flowery, muggy sense and a sense that something was dark and close and something that she could not quite sense because the others hid it so well.

It was not until the vampires and most of the lycanthropes had left the sleeping car, and been replaced by human sleepers, that Buffy could relax into a fitful slumber.

_Rap. Rap. Rap._

Buffy groaned and buried her face in the folds of her thin pillow.

_Rap. Rap. Rap._

She groaned and staggered out of bed. Sensing only a human behind the door, Buffy unlocked it and yanked it open with a glare. Tendrils of blonde hair hanging in her face, Buffy snarled, “What?”

“It’s nearly dawn.” The old man in the conductor's uniform informed her. He beamed at her with an excess of morning cheer. “This is your complimentary wake up service!”

Buffy fumbled at the back of her door before she wrenched one of the tags off of it. She strung the ‘do not disturb’ sign on the front of her door handle.

“Miss. Most of the humans leave these compartments at this time so that their vampire roommates may have the bed.”

Buffy stared. “You’re going to make me get up and give up my bed to a vampire?”

“Only for the day.”

“My mom booked this compartment for me! Hold on!” She stomped back into the darkened space. Without bothering with a light, Buffy easily pulled her plastic portfolio out of her bag. Inside of it were all of her tickets and itineraries. When she found the right stub, she stormed back to the conductor. “See?”

He gently took the ticket and studied it for a moment. Then he tapped his finger against a certain line of text and said, "Look here. It’s only yours until a half hour before sunrise."

Buffy groaned. “Give me a minute.”

It was the work of a few minutes to get dressed and stuff everything, including the sword, back into her bag. Not trusting her ‘vampire roommate’ to keep his or her grubby fingers out of her bag, Buffy lugged the whole thing to the dining car. Over breakfast, Buffy frowned as she slowly felt the vampires all disappear one by one. The youngest vampires disappeared first with the oldest vampires disappearing at dawn or very shortly after it.

_Did someone kill them? But I didn’t feel them yesterday until after dark. And they had to have gotten on the train when it was still dark out. So what’s happening? Are there different sorts of vampire? Souled and soulless ones? But then what happens to their souls during the day?_

Buffy stole a more recent newspaper from the dining car then spent the morning alternately dozing and outlining in her diary the list of rights that the newspapers all seemed to agree that vampires possessed. Try as she might, Buffy could not find any mention of a Slayer’s rights. There were, however, an alarming number of requests for qualified vampire executioners throughout the fifty states.

At lunch, Mark tried to claim the seat across from Buffy again.

“No thanks,” Buffy said when he tried to move some of her things. “I’m fine on my own.”

“But we were getting along so well last night,” Mark cajoled.

“There are plenty of free seats right now and I’m busy. So beat it.”

With a frown, Mark moved away toward a nearby table. Buffy went back to trying to figure out how to get paid for doing her sacred duty.

After lunch, Buffy got off of the train at one of the longer stopovers. She called her Watcher at the first pay phone that she found.

“Tell me everything you know about these non-demony vampires, Giles,” Buffy demanded as soon as her Watcher answered the phone.

“B-Buffy! My dear girl! Are you quite–”

“Don’t you distract me with all those friendly are-you-wells and I-was-going-to-tell-yous! If Oz hadn’t made me promise to read a newspaper before I did any you-know-what-ing I might’ve been…” Buffy glanced around at the people walking around her. They seemed uninterested in her conversation but, as the Slayer, she had learned that it was impossible to be too careful. She hissed into the phone’s receiver, “…in trouble!”

“You left very quickly,” the older man stiffly reminded her. “I didn’t have a chance to say anything.”

“Well, you have one now. So spill.”

Giles sighed. “What have you read?”

“Three different newspapers and five magazines.”

“That – That wasn’t what I meant.” Now Giles merely sounded pained. “What do you already know?”

“Vampires basically have a green card. None of them are citizens yet. After a warrant of execution has been issued by the courts, vampire executioners carry out the sentence. Naughty vampires might just be locked in jails, though. Local vampire executioners might be allowed to become federal marshals if they have a certain number of kills or a certain number of years’ worth of experience. And I have to agree that the Master of St. Louis is gorgeous! And his accent is supposed to be to die for. Too bad he's a bloodsucker.”

“It sounds like you have all the highlights.”

"No way! Have you seen the newspapers outside of Sunnydale? They’re full of ads begging for an experienced vampire hunter to carry out their warrants." Buffy lowered her voice and hissed, "These people need a Slayer!"

“I thought you were going on holiday to get away from your duties on the Hellmouth.”

“I was! I am! I’m just… itchy.”

“Itchy?”

“There are a lot of vampires on the train with me.”

"So you’re considering answering one of those ads," Giles sighed. "Buffy, there’s no way that I could tell you everything you need to know about vampires who are not of the Aurelius line in one phone conversation."

“Summarize. I’ll ask better questions after I get a job.”

“Do you remember Lothos?”

“Yes. He could fly! So could his children. And he could do sexy mind thrall without ever touching you and– he was from this other line?”

“He was from one of the other lines. They’re smaller in numbers since they do not procreate as quickly as the Line of Aurelius. He was from Belle Morte's line.”

“Belle Morte,” Buffy murmured, rolling the name around in her mouth. “How many lines are there?”

“So many that it doesn’t bear counting. The Order of Aurelius is the best at blending in with humanity. It’s the only line that can ingest solid, human foods and it’s the only line that is active during the daytime.”

“Is it the only line without souls?”

“I'm… not sure. There has been an ongoing debate in the outside world as to whether or not any vampire has a soul.”

“The ones on the train have souls. I could feel them… fluttering.”

“Buffy! Are you certain?”

“Yeah,” Buffy dragged a sleeve across her forehead, wiping the worst of the sweat away. Summertime in Arizona was hot. “After that whole thing with Angel and Angelus, I can feel the difference. The vamps on the train lost their souls during the day and got them back at night.”

“Good lord! I should’ve come with you!”

“That’d sort of defeat the purpose of a holiday, Giles,” Buffy said wryly. “Besides, I’ll tell you everything when I get back. Is Belle Morte one of the larger lines, then?”

“Yes. Each line has its own specialties. Belle Morte’s line inspires and feeds on sex and arousal. But there are other lines that feed on other things like fear or terror or pain. There’s one, very rare line that is able to hop between bodies. And many vampire lines can enslave... well, practically everyone.”

Buffy shivered, imagining how much worse the vampire masters that she had already faced would have been if they had been able to do any of those other things. Then she remembered all of those supposedly willing donors on the train and felt ill. Pushing away those thoughts, Buffy said, “I’m going to get off of the train in New Mexico and see if the locals will let me play vampire executioner.”

“If you get a hotel room, remember to use your Do Not Disturb sign. It's safest for a lone Slayer to sleep during the day.”

“Don’t worry! I’ve got it all under control!”

Giles sighed. “I hate it when you say that.”

Buffy pretended not to hear that remark.


	4. Desire

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Content Notes:** graphic depictions of violence  
>  **Disclaimer:** I have no rights to or within the Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Anita Blake franchises, copyrights, characters or trademarks. This is for fun, not profit.  
>  **Summary:** Inspired by Xander, Buffy takes a road trip of her own. Along the way, she rides on trains, hitchhikes, picks up the odd job, and makes new friends... whether she wants them or not.  
>  **Additional Notes:** This fic fills [](http://xgirl2222.dreamwidth.org/profile)[](http://xgirl2222.dreamwidth.org/)**xgirl2222** 's prompt for Wishlist 2012 which I interpreted to mean a Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Anita Blake crossover with a parting, a meeting, and Asher, Jean-Claude, and Buffy. Also fills the "unrequited pining" square on my Hurt/Comfort Bingo card and the "Headache" square on my Cotton Candy Bingo card. Also answers Challenge #6910 (Play by the Rules) and Challenge #4842 (Vampires' Superiority Complex) on the Twisting the Hellmouth Website and partially answers the TTH100_2 Challenge.

**007\. Desire**

Faith and Spike had been wrong about a lot of things but they had both been right when they said that slaying was part of Buffy’s nature now. After forty-eight hours of being trapped in a line of tin cans traveling at high speeds with vampires that she was not allowed to slay, Buffy felt jittery and snappish. Even though she was careful to never so much as lay eyes on the vampires, just the knowledge that they were _there_ for the slaying was enough to make Buffy’s hands itch for the smooth weight of a stake.

_And when even I know I’m being a bitch, that’s saying something._

So she got off of the train somewhere in New Mexico, exchanged her tickets, and went in search of a place to stay. An hour later, after checking into a clean but threadbare hotel room, Buffy made her way toward the sheriff’s office.

_You can take the Slayer off of the Hellmouth but you can’t take the Slayer out of the girl,_ Buffy thought happily. _Who knew I’d ever miss patrolling?_

When he finally understood that she was there about the ad in the newspaper, Sheriff Jones sucked on his teeth for a few seconds and squinted at her. Eventually, he said, “Are you sure you’re here about that ad? There’s also one for a new secretary. And we have a ride along program for high schoolers.”

Buffy shook her wrinkled newspaper at the man. "I’m here about the ad for the executioner."

“You’re a bit... er... young.”

“I’ve got lots of experience.”

“Oh?” he asked, arching an eyebrow at her.

“From before the law,” Buffy hastily explained. “At least let me try.”

“I don’t feel right, letting a sweet-looking girl like you go after _them.”_

Irritated, Buffy kicked out at the chair opposite her own. The leg snapped off and arced through the air. In a single fluid movement, Buffy caught the chair leg and threw it, splintered side first, at the dart board hanging to her left. It hit the bull’s-eye with a solid _thunk,_ sinking into the plastered wall behind it.

“Appearances can be deceiving,” Buffy said as steadily as she could manage. “I'm eighteen and I don’t have any sunlight, moonlight, or dietary restrictions. I fit the basic requirements. Give me the job.”

Sheriff Jones ran his fingers through his graying hair. “Do you really want it?”

“With all my heart.”

“Just don’t die. I’d feel awful if you did.”

The knot of tension in her chest began to loosen. Buffy took a deep, cleansing breath, smiled brightly, and said, “Oddly enough, that’s the number one rule of slaying.”

“Slaying?”

“Vampire slaying.” The sight of Buffy’s wide smile had the poor man leaning backwards in his chair. “I’m known as The Slayer.”

Sheriff Jones did not look reassured.

Early the next morning, Buffy called Giles again.

“I got the job!”

“Er… excellent. What do we know about your, er, targets?”

“It’s only two vampires and there are pictures included so that I’ll get the right ones. One’s seductive and the other’s a rotter. They’re partners and they like to torture their unwilling victims.”

“Good lord! They sound dangerous.”

“They haven’t even been vampires for ten years yet. It’s probably just that none of the vampire executioners seem to have claimed this state as their territory.”

"It’s a foolish system but I’m hard pressed to suggest a better one," sighed Giles.

"What do you mean?" Buffy asked. "I have a slaying territory. Sunnydale."

"By necessity, not choice," Giles stressed. "In this country, your youth made travel difficult, if not impossible, for you. What doesn’t make sense is each executioner voluntarily limiting him or herself to a territory of however many states. It would be next to impossible for the larger states with smaller human populations to attract a vampire executioner. Combining that lack of executioners with the difficulty of getting to supernaturally caused trouble in the lonelier parts of, say, North Dakota, the more distant, less populated places in this country must be terrifying after dark."

"As terrifying as Sunnydale after dark?"

"More so, since they lack a Slayer."

Buffy was quiet for a moment, thinking about that.

"So you're saying there are lots of small towns like this place that need a Slayer to come through town, clean up the baddies, and move on to the next town," Buffy said, vistas of opportunities opening up in her mind. "Like a cowboy! Or a rogue demon hunter!"

"Essentially," Giles warily agreed. "Except no place needs a Slayer quite as much as Sunnydale does."

"Except Cleveland."

"Quite. Call me this afternoon and I’ll tell you what my research has turned up.”

“Thanks, Giles!”

Buffy whiled away the time until she could call Giles again by shopping and eating and shopping some more. When she finally called her Watcher back, Buffy was thoroughly relaxed and ready to go kill things that bumped in the night. Giles, however, was less sanguine.

"I could be there before tomorrow," he offered. "We could do this together."

"Head and heart," Buffy replied as she gave her favorite sword, the blessed one that Kendra had given her, a practice swing. "Especially for the rotter. It seems simple enough. If I go now, I could be done before sunset. You said that they'd be asleep until then, right?"

"Right. Buffy, _be careful!"_

"Always am."

Finding their resting places was not as easy as Buffy had anticipated. Unlike Sunnydale, she could not beat up a sleazy bartender or force feed anyone a cross for information. She could, however, still move through the shadows unnoticed. So Buffy haunted the shadows every night, watching for her prey.

In Buffy's experience, most vampires were suckers for staying within a chosen territory. Spike, who liked to wander and see the sights, was an exception that proved the rule. The odds were very good that her Bonnie and Clyde were still in this town, still feeding on the populace. She just had to find them. Thus, the haunting. But after nearly a week, Buffy was beginning to get discouraged.

And then, she heard the tale-end of a conversation.

Two moderately old vampires were laughing at the moron that the authorities had sent after Smythe and Draper, the lust-maker and messy rotter. As the moron in question, Buffy stole closer.

"I can't wait to see what they do with this one," chortled the rat-faced vamp as he and his friend walked down the pavement. Buffy made a mental note to _ask_ next time if someone else had gone after a target before her instead of just assuming that no one else had tried to fill an order of execution. "I bet it'll be funny."

"The last one was _hilarious,"_ the other, taller vampire agreed. "Maybe they'll have the vampire hunter when we get back tonight."

"We can only hope," agreed the rat-faced vamp. "Oh, look! Dinner."

The two vampires looked at the group of girls in lacrosse waiting for a bus and then shared a grin that made Buffy tighten her grip on her stake.

When the pair oozed up to the girls, Buffy followed them. She listened as the vampires tried to charm and cajole their targets into allowing themselves to be cut away from the herd. Since this town was not Sunnydale, none of the girls fell for it. Disappointed, the vampires moved on. Buffy went with them. She followed the vampires as they prowled the street and reminisced about the horrible things that her targets had done to the vampire hunter before her.

_So much for legal equality. These souled vamps are nearly as bad as the unsouled ones, just better at hiding it. But then, they’ve had centuries to perfect their superiority complexes and faking friendly smiles._ Her grip on her stake tight enough to make the wood creak under her grasp, Buffy vowed, _Someday, they're going to be the ones under an order of execution. And when they are, I'll be waiting for them. Their deaths are going to be long and brutal._

Buffy shadows their movements for the rest of the night, watching as they finally found people will to serve as snacks, controlling her instinctive urge to stake them during the actual biting and sucking. It seemed hours before the vamps pulled back and let the stupid snacks stagger away.

It was nearly sunrise before the vampires finally led Buffy to a rotting warehouse in a defunct freight yard. At sunrise, Buffy felt the souls in the warehouse wink out, one by one, until there was no tickling sense of _vampire!_ on the back of her neck. Buffy waited until the sun was well and truly up before she slipped inside of the splintering building.

The vampires, Buffy discovered, had arranged actual coffins around the perimeter of the room and in rows along its length.

_Creepy!_ Buffy thought as her eyes skated over glassy oak, mahogany, and cherry wood coffins. _Why on earth would this seem like a good idea? Are they nuts?_

Heaving open the first coffin was the worst. It was utterly wigsome for one thing. For another, Buffy expected a vampire to leap out of the coffin, all snarling fangs and grasping fingers. Instead, she just laid there looking really, really dead.

After three years of being the Slayer, Buffy was used to dead bodies. But there was something particularly creepy about the ones that Buffy knew for a fact were only biding their time until they could get up and munch on the living. Just looking at those sorts of corpses made Buffy's slaying arm itch.

Resisting temptation, Buffy opened each coffin in turn, looking for her chosen prey. She found them sharing an extra wide coffin, cuddled together and very obviously dead for the day. Buffy raised Mr. Pointy and then hesitated, feeling oddly unfulfilled.

_It's too easy,_ Buffy decided. _I miss the fists and fangs and all of that crap. After I get the hang of these new vampire lines and all of this executioner stuff, I'm definitely going back to hunting at night._

Decision made, Buffy raise Mr. Pointy again and slammed him through the nearest vampire's heart. She felt the tip of her stake smash through bone, slide through organs, and thump against a rib. It was utterly satisfying.

A split second later, a hand closed around Buffy's throat.


	5. Sweat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Content Notes:** graphic depictions of violence  
>  **Disclaimer:** I have no rights to or within the Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Anita Blake franchises, copyrights, characters or trademarks. This is for fun, not profit.  
>  **Additional Notes:** This fic fills [](http://xgirl2222.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**xgirl2222**](http://xgirl2222.dreamwidth.org/)'s prompt for Wishlist 2012 which I interpreted to mean a Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Anita Blake crossover with a parting, a meeting, and Asher, Jean-Claude, and Buffy. Also fills the "unrequited pining" square on my Hurt/Comfort Bingo card and the "Headache" square on my Cotton Candy Bingo card. Also answers Challenge #6910 (Play by the Rules) and Challenge #4842 (Vampires' Superiority Complex) on the Twisting the Hellmouth Website and partially answers the TTH100_2 Challenge.

**071\. Sweat**

Bony fingers dug into the soft flesh of Buffy's throat and wrenched her halfway into the coffin. Buffy had the impression of gray skin sloughing off and the flash of fangs as seen through a half-rotted away cheek before she found herself up close and personal with a pair of glowing eye sockets and shriveled eyeballs. Underneath her stomach, the vampire's arm was flexing and twisting, perhapsto disembowel her or come around her waist and finish dragging her in and Mr. Pointy's shaft dug into her abdomen.

Wailing an unearthly shriek, the vampire sank his teeth into Buffy's shoulder. Pain seared through Buffy as he savaged her with his teeth, the mass of her flesh and blood doing little to muffle his shrieks.

Terrified, Buffy automatically wrapped her hand around the vamp's wrist and jammed the palm of one hand against the place where his throat should be. Her palm slapped into a heap of slimy, rotting flesh and the vague impression of boney protuberances, muffling the vampire's screams. It was the most disgusting thing that Buffy had ever put her hand in. Her own shrieks were mostly gargles of sound and air as Buffy clenched her other hand and twisted, wrenching the vampire's hand off at the wrist.

The vampire was still tearing at her shoulder, his fangs embedded deep within her flesh, but it took all of Buffy's willpower to drive her bare hands into the corpse's putrid tissues, feeling for the solid mass of his spine. Underneath her, the vamp's body bowed and arched and writhed. When the tip of one of her fingers banged against something smooth and hard, Buffy adjusted her angle and then closed her hand around delicate bone. Ridges and spires of bone digging into the flesh and bone of her own hand, Buffy tightened her grip and twisted her wrist, hard. She felt his spine shatter, slivers of bone driving themselves into her palm, as she tore his neck in half.

The fangs in her shoulder abruptly stopped moving and the arm trapped under her stomach stilled. When Buffy shoved herself backwards, out of the coffin, she took the head with her. Its fangs were still imbedded in her shoulder.

Buffy collapsed on the floor, her pants ringing in her ears. For a few seconds, all she could concentrate on was how utterly, amazingly wonderful it was to be alive and unafraid. And how much it hurt to have a vampire head hanging from her shoulder.

Pulling the fangs out of her shoulder _hurt._ When Buffy flung the head down, it landed on the ground with a sickening squelch.

Suddenly furious, Buffy slammed the side of her good fist against the vampire's skull, shattering it. It was one of the most emotionally satisfying things that Buffy had ever done. So she smashed the head's biggest bits again and again until it was pulp. Panting and gasping for breath, her hand resting in a mess of bone chips and oozing flesh, Buffy forced herself to calm down and get a grip before something else went wrong or grabbed her.

That was when the other sounds, the ones that Buffy herself was not making, began to register.

Her heart pounding, Buffy clenched her hand in scraggly remnants of the skull's hair and forced herself to her feet on a wave of adrenaline that left the pain in her shoulder a dull throb. She spun towards the sound of soft, ratting moans, prepared to bash everything and anything into submission with half of a parietal plate.

Buffy was the only thing standing in the room.

Around her, most of the coffins were closed and still. Several were shaking, limbs rasping over satin and silk or thumping against wood. But a handful of them had sprung open, their half-rotted occupants sitting up and facing her with their eye sockets fixed on her. Their moans rattled through the remnants of their desiccated throats.

Buffy braced herself for a fight.

Nothing happened.

_There's no tingle on my neck,_ Buffy slowly realized _. They're all still dead for the day. They're just... zombies? On autopilot? Is that a thing?_

Her throat and her belly were beginning to hurt. Her shoulder had never stopped hurting. Buffy decided that daytime zombies on autopilot was _definitely_ a thing in non-Aurelian vampires. She also decided that it was time to go.

Moving her injured shoulder hurt like burning but Buffy still forced herself to tear the non-rotted vampire's head off. Then, with her good arm, she relocated Mr. Pointy from one chest to the remnants of the other, fished a carefully folded garbage bag out of her pocket, and dropped the head, the biggest pieces of the rotted head, and Mr. Pointy into it. By then her hands were wet with gore, which in turn made the plastic slippery. Knotting the top of the garbage bag was tricky. Proof secured, Buffy limped for the nearest exit, screw whatever got hit by a bit of morning sunshine.

_You harbor fugitives from justice, you take your chances,_ Buffy decided as she passed a rotting corpse that was sprawled halfway out of its' open coffin, as if it had been in the process of coming to the other two vampires' aid when it suddenly ran out of crazy zombie juice. _First stop, the hospital. Second stop, bed. Tomorrow, I'll collect my fee, report to Giles, and hit a non-Giles library. Because this shit isn't happening again. A Slayer's gotta know her enemy._

Outside of the warehouse, it was still early morning and the day was hot but not yet scorching. It felt wrong. It felt like it should be much later in the day. Buffy staggered out into the sunlight, anyway. She gloried in it.

She had to walk to a nicer, less creepy part of town to catch a cab. Every step jostled her wounds, making them throb and ache. As she walked, sweat beaded over Buffy's skin and dripped into her wounds. Somehow those tiny, stinging pains were nearly as awful as the bites.

Buffy knew that she had hit a nicer part of town when people started doing double takes at her appearance. When she ducked into a gas station and asked for a cab, the man behind the counter complied with her demands with gratifying speed. He also gave her a chilled bottle of water and a lump of ice wrapped in a worn handkerchief free of charge.

At the hospital, Buffy was whisked from the walk-in emergency room directly onto a gurney. They gave her a clipboard filled with paperwork to fill out while they wheeled her into the treatment area. Buffy filled out the paperwork as best she could, let them make copies of her insurance card, and asked for someone to double-bag her garbage bag. The gunk that had been on her hands when she had originally tied it was beginning to dry. It smelled awful. _She_ smelled awful.

A nurse was gently cleaning the area around her bite wounds when a doctor sailed past the curtains surrounding her little treatment area and stopped dead.

"It's really not as bad as it looks," Buffy said brightly. "You should see the other guy."

The doctor slowly nodded and introduced himself. He asked, "Have the police been notified yet?"

"They will be. I'm the new vampire slayer in town. But hush-hush, you know? So don't spread it around, either of you. Anyway, I was fulfilling my first court-ordered execution when, uh, all of this happened." Trying to hold still, Buffy darted a quick look towards her double-bagged heads as she added, "But I totally won the argument."

The doctor turned to look at the white garbage bag sitting innocuously on a visitor's chair, stared at it for a few seconds, and then slowly turned slightly green. Hastily looking back towards Buffy, he said, "Let's see about those bruises and puncture wounds, shall we?"

It was hours before the hospital staff let Buffy escape back to her hotel room with strict care instructions and a tentative assurance that her injuries would probably not scar very much. Buffy immediately went to the nearest sandwich shop and purchased a quart of ice tea, about a half-gallon of bottled water, a box of designer crackers, and a gallon of chicken soup. Then Buffy retreated to her room, put out the Do Not Disturb sign, and crawled into bed.

If the local vampires had a problem with waking up to their executed brethren, they did not disturb Buffy with it.

The next morning, Buffy woke up feeling ravenously hungry and incredibly sore. She lurched out of bed in fits and starts and headed for her bathroom. After a wonderfully hot shower, Buffy carefully dressed in a loose t-shirt and jeans. Then, since she had finished off all of her provisions during the night, Buffy set out in search of breakfast.

The look that the clerk at the nearest greasy spoon gave her bruised and bandaged throat made Buffy wish that she had thought to pack a turtleneck.

_But who packs turtlenecks during a summer trip?_ Buffy thought as she waited for her Supreme Breakfast Combo to make an appearance. _And it feels loads better than it did yesterday. Everything feels loads better. Slayer healing for thewin!_

When her breakfast showed up, Buffy ate with a ravenous will. Afterwards, Buffy went back to her hotel room for the Bag of Heads. Then she headed for the police station again.

"Wait one moment and someone will be right with you to take your statement," said the officer behind the desk, while eyeing Buffy's neck through the thick layer of glass separating them. He was safely locked into his little admin booth, a locked door on either side of him.

"Oh, no, I'm here to see Sheriff Jones," Buffy replied. She hefted her double-bagged heads as she added, "I've got something for him."

"He's out right now," the clerk replied, looking dubious. "Would you care to leave it with me?"

"It'd probably be best if I delivered them myself," Buffy decided. In her experience, people tended to take someone leaving a pair of severed heads and no explanation for them very poorly. "I'll wait."

She claimed a seat on the bench across from the sergeant's desk and waited for something to happen. The officer behind the desk went back to work. Nothing happened. It was all very boring.

When Sheriff Jones finally strode out from behind one of the doors, he looked genuinely pleased to see her alive.

"Miss Summers!" he exclaimed. A moment later, he looked sort of appalled. "You look terrible."

"Fun fact," Buffy replied, "rotters wake up when you kill their coffin-mates. And they make like zombies when you kill other rotters in the coffin room. Did you know that? I didn't know that."

"No," said the sheriff slowly. "I didn't. Honestly, I'd hope you'd given up a few weeks back."

"I didn't. It just took awhile to find the right vamps," Buffy replied. She offered him the trash bag. "I've brought the proofs of deaths."

The sheriff eyed the bag with something very much like trepidation. "Proofs of death?"

"The heads," Buffy cheerfully affirmed. The desk clerk dropped his pencil. "Do you have any other death warrants for me to execute? And how do I get paid?"

"That, ah, wasn't necessary," he said, making no move to take the bag of heads from Buffy. "Why don't you come with me?"

The desk clerk buzzed them through one of the self-locking doors.

The sheriff led Buffy first to another officer's desk, where she surrendered the heads and the officer was charged with taking them to the morgue. Then the sheriff led her to his office, where he called the city's accountant to cut a check for her. While studying the giant state map that dominated one wall of the office, Buffy listened as the accountant promised to have a check made out to cash ready for her to pick up within two days' time.

When he got off of the phone, the sheriff passed the accountant's message along then said, "There's only one more piece of business and then we'll be done here. Who should I attribute the kill to?"

"Attribute the kill to? I don't understand."

"I'll have to note who performed the warrant. Some vampire executioners use their real names, like Anita Blake. Others simply use their handles, something that the vampires call them."

"Ah. Put two down for the Slayer."

The sheriff nodded, made a few quick notes on another copy of the warrant that Buffy had executed, and then had Buffy sign it as the Slayer. He inked her right thumb up and made her press a thumbprint into a particular box in the bottom right-hand corner of the form. Then he put away the ink pad, filed the form, and stood next to Buffy's chair, as if waiting to usher Buffy out of his office. Buffy stubbornly stayed in her seat.

"Hey, don't you have any other warrants for me to execute?" Buffy asked.

"No."

"Do you know of any other little towns that might need a visit from a traveling vampire executioner?" Buffy persisted.

The sheriff sighed. "Are you sure that you want to do this?"

"Yes," Buffy said firmly.

Sheriff Jones sighed again then leaned down to pull open his bottom drawer on the left side. He retrieved a short stack of death warrants from the drawer and fanned them out across his desk like cards from a pack of playing cards.

"These are copies of all of the death warrants currently valid within the state of New Mexico. The ones in the cities will be thrown to a vampire executioner who goes by his name, Ted Forrester. The rest of them aren't worth his time."

"Then they're mine," Buffy replied as she studied the warrants, sorting them one by one into two piles. "There, does that seem right? The ones on the left are Ted's and the ones on the right are mine."

"Yeah," the sheriff said after flipping through the stack on the right. "Kid, you're going to get yourself killed."

"That was my first time dealing with a rotter," Buffy replied as she took her stack from him. She folded it in half and then wedged it into her little purse. "I'll do better with these. Will you be my reference if those other police chiefs ask for one?"

"Yes," he sighed. "If you're going to do this, kid, can I give you a piece of advice?"

"Yeah, sure."

"Stop giving out your name. You don't need to and no one's going to ask for it. The title and your right thumbprint are enough. The more you use your name, the more likely it is to get out. And set up an account somewhere far away where banking is their national export and your name is optional. Somewhere where an electronic money transfer won't be traceable to you."

"Gotcha. Should I bring in the heads next time?"

"There's, ah, nothing _wrong_ with bringing the heads back, per se," the sheriff said carefully. "It's just very old-fashioned. And no one has ever offered me _a_ head, much less a pair of them, before."

"What can I say? I'm just an old-fashioned girl."

Since she apparently had some time to kill, Buffy spent the rest of her morning in the local library, abusing the generosity of their librarians. She learned exactly nothing about vampires, vampire lines, or vampire slaying that she did not already know, save for the fact that the biggest, baddest, 'grand-daddy' of vampire hunting was some guy who killed about a hundred vampires _in his entire lifetime._

Buffy had killed more vampires than that during her first three months as the Slayer. Lothos had been her hundred and fifty-seventh kill. She had stopped counting after she killed Lothos.

_I'm totally taking your title old man,_ Buffy thought as she studied the black and white photograph of a grinning old man. He was missing some teeth and had some wicked scars down one side of his face, around his throat, and on the back of his hands. Still, he looked like he had an awesome sense of humor. Buffy liked to imagine that he would have welcomed a bit of friendly competition.

Buffy left the library at lunchtime, ate lunch at the greasy spoon, and went back to her room to call her Watcher.

"Giles, is there stuff about rotter-vamps turning into rotting, screaming zombie-vamps when you try to stake them anywhere in the Slayer Handbook?" Buffy asked as soon as Giles answered his cell phone in lieu of a greeting. "Also, is there anything about them forming no-soul zombie-packs? Because both of those things totally happened."

"What? I'll, ah, look it up as we speak," Giles said. Through their phone connection, Buffy listened as he moved about his apartment. "I take it that you had a run in with your quarry last night?"

"I killed them yesterday," Buffy informed him as she listened to him flip pages in a book. "I went in during the day when all of the little vampires were dead for the day. I staked the first one, the lusty vamp, easy as Xander falling off a tombstone. There were, ah, unexpected problems with the second kill, though. Zombie-like problems."

"Are you okay?" Giles asked, sounding gratifyingly concerned. The page flipping paused.

"I've got a lot of bruises. And twenty-seven stitches. But, hey I shouldn't have much scarring. And they said that without knowing about my Slayer-ly healing factor or extensive knowledge of applicable scar-minimizing skincare regimens so I'm banking on no scars. Go me!"

"Indeed," said Giles as the flipping started again. "Ah, here's the relevant portion. A moment, please."

Buffy waited in silence as Giles presumably skimmed the appropriate section.

"Yes," he said finally. "Those are both in the Slayer Handbook."

"FedEx that book to me," Buffy ordered. "And a crossbow. And bolts. Crossbow bolts can kills screaming rotters, right?"

"Well, uh, not entirely? It is imperative that you destroy the heart and take the head when dealing with that line, as I reminded you at the outset of this adventure."

"Which I totally did! I listen when you talk!"

"Sometimes, I wonder."

"Well, I do. I'm also a very good reader. Why, this very morning, I went into a library and read a book. Several books, actually, as well as a variety of articles and I even skimmed a few webpages."

"Dare I ask what you were researching?"

"Vampires, obviously! The non-Giles-y library had _nothing_ useful, by the way, except for the name of the so-called grand-daddy of vampire hunting. Did you know that killing a hundred vamps is considered a huge thing outside of Sunnydale?"

"No. I'm not really surprised, of course, but it's utterly disheartening."

"I can totally beat that!"

"B-Beat that?" Giles asked, sounding alarmed.

"Of course. Everyone always says that you should do what you're good at as a career. I'm good at slaying. Giles, do you know how much this town is going to pay me for killing those two vamps?"

"I-I think that the saying is to do what you love," Giles offered weakly.

"Even better!"

"Buffy, slaying is a sacred calling. To get paid for it is-"

"Smart, especially since I'm not going to let the council own me. How else am I going to pay my bills? If I find a real job that I like and is compatible with Slaying, I'll totally do that on the side. Or as a part-time thing."

"Or an official one."

"Ooohhhh, yes! Secret-identity stuff! Ha! I'll get the hang of that yet. Kendra will be so proud!"

"...Indeed."

"Do you think I'll be able to keep my secret identity up if I write off my ruined clothes as a work-related expense? You know, for taxes."

"I don't... know."

"Right. British. I'll ask when I turn in my next set of heads. I think they'd just take my word for it if I just wanted to report a kill or whatever but I'm an old-fashioned girl. You raised me right, Giles."

"Buffy, I, ah, need to go... go lie down. Now. I'll talk to you tomorrow."

"Okay! Bye Giles!"


	6. Picture

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Content Notes:** graphic depictions of violence  
>  **Disclaimer:** I have no rights to or within the Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Anita Blake franchises, copyrights, characters or trademarks. This is for fun, not profit.  
>  **Additional Notes:** This fic fills [](http://xgirl2222.dreamwidth.org/profile)[](http://xgirl2222.dreamwidth.org/)**xgirl2222** 's prompt for Wishlist 2012 which I interpreted to mean a Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Anita Blake crossover with a parting, a meeting, and Asher, Jean-Claude, and Buffy. Also fills the "unrequited pining" square on my Hurt/Comfort Bingo card and the "Headache" square on my Cotton Candy Bingo card. Also answers Challenge #6910 (Play by the Rules) and Challenge #4842 (Vampires' Superiority Complex) on the Twisting the Hellmouth Website and partially answers the TTH100_2 Challenge.  
> 

**015\. Picture**

After Giles hung up, Buffy called her mother and left a message for her on their home answering machine. Then she called Willow but, when Willow failed to pick up, ended up spending her afternoon alternately watching the weather channel and drowsing. She had dinner at a Mexican restaurant that looked like a shack. The food tasted divine, however, and Buffy ended up gorging herself. She may also have ordered takeout, in case of midnight munchies.

After dinner, Buffy called Willow again. This time, she picked up on the second ring.

"Hello?" Willow asked breathlessly.

"Wills?"

"Buffy! Omigosh! Tell me that you haven't killed anything since you left Sunnydale!"

"Not without a warrant. Hey! How'd you find out about that?"

"Oz had a gig in San Francisco! And he took me with him! And it was _amazing_ and _so romantic_ and we slept in the back of his van and-"

"Breathe, Wills."

Willow gasped heavily and then sucked in a deep, shuddering breath. She breathed out again, then in, then said, "Thanks."

"Now tell me all about it."

Buffy listened attentively as Willow told her all about traveling with Oz as his official girlfriend-slash-number one groupie. Buffy told Willow about finding out that vampires were citizens, stalking vampires by night, and her first executions.

"You seriously didn't know about this before you left Sunnydale?" Willow asked.

"No! Did you?"

"No! I didn't even guess! But when we got back from San Francisco, Oz and I went online and did some poking around! Buffy, you would not believe the web of site blocking and content filtering tools wrapped around Sunnydale's internet access. _Everything's_ filtered. Finding a backdoor was _hard._ It's like Sunnydale's under the Glavlit."

"The whos-it?"

_"The Glavlit,_ Buffy!" At Buffy's silence, Willow made a little noise and then started a long explanation about the political and social structure of the former Soviet Union, which seemed to boil down to the Glavlit being the Censorship Police.

"Why would anyone want to do that in Sunnydale?" asked Buffy, interrupting Willow's tangent about the evils of censorship.

"I don't know. Maybe it made the Mayor's life easier? Like, people are more easily influenced and preyed on if they _don't_ know that the supernatural is real?"

"So why's it still in place?"

"Bureaucracies are slow? Oh! Or maybe the demons like the status quo!"

"So Sunnydale's their free range buffet?"

"Something like that?"

"That's grim, Wills. But maybe true. Hey, speaking of people who got free of the Glaive-Lights, have you heard from Xander yet this summer?"

"No, which is starting to worry me. You know what a demon-magnet he is!"

"And you can't use your arcane internet powers to find him, Wills?"

"Use the internet? How?"

Remembering what the sheriff had said earlier, Buffy suggested, "Using his name in print, somewhere, maybe? Or his credit card? Or a paycheck or something?"

"Oh! Hey! Good idea!"

"It wasn't mine, Wills. The sheriff gave me some pretty good advice and I thought, hey, if anyone can figure out how to do this, it'll be Wills."

"Oooohhh, with a lead-in like that, I'm all aflutter! What do you need?"

"First, I need you to research international banking laws. Apparently, I need a bank account somewhere far away where banking is their national export and your name is optional. Somewhere where an electronic money transfer won't be traceable to me."

"I'll do it but it sounds sort of shady, Buffy."

"It's apparently the preferred method of payment among vampire hunters. I'm just trying to fit in. And to not drag anything home with me. My mom'll invite _anyone_ into the house. And I really do mean _anyone,_ except maybe Angel."

"Hey, is anything going on there? You said his name... sort of funny."

"I just... Part of Angel's appeal was that he was supposed to be the only vamp with a soul in the world except, Wills, there are _a lot_ of vamps with souls wandering around out here. Almost all of them have one! He's _not_ unique or especially good, like he always said that he was."

"He _lied_ to you? And got with you under - under false pretenses? That poop-head! That _rat!_ I should turn him into a rat! I could do that! Then he'd be sorry!"

"It's sweet Wills, but I've got the vague impression that witches are regulated too in the real world."

"They know about witches?" Willow asked, sounding excited.

"I left the warrants of execution for three witches to New Mexico's other executioner."

Willow squeaked and there was a heavy clatter. A few moments later, Willow gasped, "Executions?"

"They used magic as weapons, Wills."

"So... No turning Angel into a rat?"

"Maybe no magic until you know what'll get you ax-murdered by some executioner-who-is-not-me."

"G-Gotcha." There was a beat of silence between them then Willow said, "It's a scary world out there, isn't it, Buffy?"

"Sometimes. But I think I like it." When Willow said nothing for maybe a little too long, Buffy asked, "Is there anything that you want me to pick up for you while I'm out here? The fashions are awesome."

"F-Fashion? Tell me about the fashions," Willow finally ordered, a tiny quaver in her voice. Buffy happily complied.

A package was waiting for Buffy at the front desk the next morning. It had Giles' address in one corner and stickers indicating that he had overnighted it to her. Buffy took the package to breakfast with her. (Sadly, breakfast was not had at the Mexican restaurant. It opened at lunchtime.) After breakfast, Buffy opened her package.

The Slayer Handbook was alarmingly large with a cover made from dried Polgara demon skin and pages that smelled suspiciously like dried vampire skin. But it seemed to have been written by Slayers, for Slayers, which was _ridiculously awesome._ There were even diagrams of the sensitive spots on a man-were, a rotter's vulnerability, and carefully colored sketches of properly made poisons, potions, and spells, all of which would be useful to a down and dirty Slayer, painting the world red on her own. Buffy just had to remember to skip the long, boring bits that were written by old, disapproving Watchers to brainwash and crush down malleable, young Slayers.

Buffy was young but no one had ever accused her of being malleable, not even her Watchers.

She spent her morning reading, drowsed that afternoon, and slept through the night. The next morning, Buffy bought snacks from a grocery store, mostly to get her hands on a large, brown paper bag, and then went to fetch her paycheck from Sheriff Jones and the town accountant. Buffy paycheck had more zeroes than she had ever seen, was made payable to the bearer, and was made out to cash. She might have felt odd walking around with so much money on her person but she was the freaking Slayer, thank you very much. Muggers beware!

She still hid most of it in a rolled up sock as soon as she got back to her room.

That afternoon, Buffy covered her the Slayer Handbook with the brown paper. That night, she left town on a wonderfully temperature-controlled bus. She spent most of that night curled up in a window seat, reading the Book of Slayers under the rays of a weak, overhead light. She had a lot to learn about those lusty vamps before she got to her next gig.

The next town was even smaller than the last one. There was a single, dusty bus station, a handful of homes, a rundown movie theater, two restaurants, and a fleabag motel that looked like it had been stolen from the set of a _Saw_ movie. The nearest police station was seven hours away. There was only one vampire in town and finding him was not difficult. He was holding court in the movie theater.

Buffy, who was crouched in the defunct projectionist's room, watched as her target held a handful of local women captive with his mad vampiric sex appeal. Buffy did not see it but the other women seemed entranced by the self-absorbed bloodsucker. They sat in the theater's frayed, rotting seats and watched the vamp's one man show. He swished about the stage, monologuing and overacting and booming out misquoted Dickenson and Shakespeare. It was _horribly_ boring. Buffy chewed gum, counted water stains on the ceiling, and tried not to fall asleep.

Nevertheless, Buffy waited until near sunrise, when the women were finally allowed to escape the old bore. Then, Buffy slipped out of her hiding place. She followed the buzz of the vampire's presence back to the men's room. She spent the next three hours looking for the damn trapdoor to the vamp's lair. Finding it was the last exciting thing that happened on that hunt.

As a lusty vamp, staking him was practically anti-climatic.

Buffy sawed off his head, bagged it, and took the afternoon bus out of town.

Buffy got her stitches taken out before her third job - executing a trio of lusty vamps in another small town. Then she went east, into Texas.

As she roamed, Buffy developed a new life rhythm, one where she spent her nights stalking through the shadows, her mornings sleeping, and her late afternoons reading the Slayer Handbook. It was refreshing in a way that going to bed early and then rising early had never been. Buffy blamed her Slayer-biology for that.

Vampires, it turned out, were vampires, regardless of the state of their soul. There were the occasional ones that seemed to break the mold, that were somehow better than the ones around them, but those strangely decent vamps always seemed to be at the bottom of the vampiric pecking order.

With a pang, Buffy wondered what had ever happened to Spike's bookish minion, Dalton. His greatest ambition had always seemed to be to spend his new eternity trying to read all the world's books.

Buffy slayed her way across the eastern and northern parts of the state before she found herself in Oklahoma. And, since she was already there, she got a copy of the state's active execution warrants. It was in Oklahoma that Buffy first started trying out the tips and tricks recommended by the girls who had come before her.

By the time that she ran across her first slicing-magic-vamps in Kansas, who turned out to be as docile as the lust-vamps during the day, Buffy had started scrawling her own tips, tricks, and observations into the book. She wrote about what happened when a vamp drank Holy Water, about the blood rituals and resurrection techniques of the Aurelius clan, about the value of gymnastics in slaying.

For Buffy, it was the best, most fun, and most lucrative summer in her life.


	7. Gold

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Content Notes:** graphic depictions of violence  
>  **Disclaimer:** I have no rights to or within the Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Anita Blake franchises, copyrights, characters or trademarks. This is for fun, not profit.  
>  **Additional Notes:** This fic fills [](http://xgirl2222.dreamwidth.org/profile)[](http://xgirl2222.dreamwidth.org/)**xgirl2222** 's prompt for Wishlist 2012 which I interpreted to mean a Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Anita Blake crossover with a parting, a meeting, and Asher, Jean-Claude, and Buffy. Also fills the "unrequited pining" square on my Hurt/Comfort Bingo card and the "Headache" square on my Cotton Candy Bingo card. Also answers Challenge #6910 (Play by the Rules) and Challenge #4842 (Vampires' Superiority Complex) on the Twisting the Hellmouth Website and partially answers the TTH100_2 Challenge.  
> 

**019\. Gold**

Buffy's meandering tour of the southwestern United States' backwaters, which mainly took place via buses, trains, and the occasional hitch, took her through the states' most rural communities. If an active order of execution was out for a vampire located in a town that was unable to attract a vampire hunter, Buffy went there first. She would hit town, stay as long as the job took, and then move on. (Sometimes with a homemade thank you pie. Thank you pies were the best!) Occasionally, Buffy ventured into more populated areas when it was painfully obvious by the accumulation of warrants in the area or the length of time that a warrant had gone unfulfilled that the local vampire hunters were dead, incompetent, or cowards. Buffy was perfectly willing to pick up the slack - and the sizeable paychecks - regardless of the underlying situation.

“You’re doing an awful lot of slaying,” Willow once pointed out while Buffy was preparing for a job in Durango, Colorado. “Especially for someone on vacation.”

“This train thing is sort of like putting the lion enclosure next to the gazelle run," Buffy said as she whittled a stake. "I know they’re there and that I could totally rip them to shreds if only I could get away with it. Taking these slaying gigs has really helped with the sheer frustration.”

Willow made an amused little noise. “And the pay has nothing to do with it?”

“I can totally afford to do some serious shopping in Manhattan," Buffy gloated. "And to, like, stay in real hotels and get room service. The hostel scene was so not my scene. I kept expecting to wake up to a vampire or a serial killer or – hey that was pretty much redundant, wasn’t it?”

Willow laughed. “Pretty much. And not to, you know, belabor a point but people deliver food there?”

“I know! It turns out that off of a Hellmouth, people will bring you just about anything after dark so long as you promise to tip them.”

“Suckers,” Willow sighed. “They wouldn’t last a week in Sunnydale.”

“No, after a week in Sunnydale, they’d _be_ suckers.”

Buffy swore that she felt Willow’s eyes roll down the length of their phone connection.

“You’re abusing your punning privileges.”

“Eh, go easy on me. I’m a little out of practice. The local vampires and demons aren’t much for civilized conversation.”

If Willow was cautiously interested in Buffy's piecemeal summer job, Buffy’s mother was much less accepting of Buffy’s choice of summertime activities.

“I agreed to this trip so that you could get away from slaying. Not so that you could slay more and different vampires in different states!”

Buffy, who had the hotel phone wedged between her shoulder and ear while she tried to scrub demon goo off of her right shin, flinched. Then she had to take a break from scrubbing off goo to rearrange the receiver. Finally, she said, “I’ve done other things. Just last night I went to the opera.”

Buffy felt that it might be more prudent not to mention that she had slept through the opera itself. The characters had been terminally stupid and speaking Italian and she had not slept well in a week. Being a solo vampire slayer was a lot more nerve wracking than she had expected. For one thing, she slept lighter since she was staying in hotels, which lacked the basic magical protections of a human home.

_The next time I do this, I’m bringing someone who can stay up and keep watch while I sleep._

“I bet you were killing something at the opera house.”

“I don’t kill things _everywhere_ I go. Just most places.”

“You shouldn’t be killing things anywhere!”

“You know what they say, Mom. A week without slaying is like a week without sunshine. Only, you know, with a crankier Slayer at the end of it because I can totally slay without sunshine. It’s, like, a job requirement.”

“Buffy Anne Summers! Be serious!”

“I didn’t expect to miss it so much,” Buffy admitted reluctantly. “And anyway, this’ll be good for my future. Think of it as a sort of summer session at USC except with more swords and bloodshed. And I get paid to do it. That’s a really big plus.”

“Not everything is about the slaying and the money, Buffy. You should find something that you love.”

“But I love slaying! And I love having money to spend!”

“You need a degree! Buffy, you can’t run around slaying vampires for your whole life!”

Buffy hesitated, ignoring the obvious point that after three, nearly four, years as the Slayer she was positively ancient. Instead, she said, “If I get enough recorded kills in before the federal marshal thing goes through, I’ll get grandfathered in and have a federal job with a steady paycheck and benefits. And when I’m old and wrinkly, I guess I could train little vampire executioners.”

“I wanted you to find something outside of your destiny,” her mother said bitterly.

"I like traveling," Buffy replied, feeling awkward and off balance. "And I like real Mexican food and fried green tomatoes. Those have nothing to do with slaying.”

_Except I really hate having to share railway cars with vampires and their happy meals. It’s nice when someone’ll give me a ride in their car to the next town. Then I’m not trying to ignore a bunch of vampires and it’s sort of relaxing to look out the window at the countryside. Maybe I could rent a car? But then I’d have to drive it and that’s a big world of no. If I didn’t have to share my sleeping area, I could just sleep when the vampires die… Hmmm… That might be worth looking into._

"Buffy! Are you listening?"

"Yes?"

"No you aren't," Her mother sighed. “I _said,_ that’s a start, I guess. Will you be home for the Fourth?”

“Mmmm, no. I think I’ll be in Missouri by then. Maybe I could watch the fireworks there. It’d be fun to see them over St. Louis’ arch.”

Her mother made a small, indefinable noise. But all she said was, “Promise me that you won’t just work. Promise me that you’ll do something purely for fun.”

“Like shopping?”

“In addition to shopping.”

“Okay. I will.”

It was with that promise in mind that Buffy looked around for a train company that would not roust her at dawn so that it could turn over her sleeping area to a vampire. The one that she found would give her control of entire ‘bedroom’ which came equipped with an armchair, a couch that turned into a bunk, and a private bathroom with sink, toilet, and shower. It was more expensive but, to Buffy's mind, entirely worth it.

She immediately purchased a ‘bedroom’ on a scenic train route. The train went out of its way to loop through several western states, including parts of California and North Dakota, to arrive fourteen days later in St. Louis, Missouri. Buffy figured that she could probably book a train ticket from there to Penn Station in New York City when she got tired of St. Louis. Finding a room in New York City would (probably) be the easy part.

 _I might have to pick up a few jobs along the way,_ Buffy decided. _Slaying money goes fast!_

In the meantime Buffy certainly had enough money to shop while she was in San Antonio and to thoroughly enjoy her train ride.

On her designated day Buffy and a newly purchased steamer trunk boarded her ‘fun’ non-Slaying and non-shopping related activity. The chest was only halfway filled with Buffy’s possessions, most of which had been acquired one way or another while on her trip.

Stuff secured in her delightfully private room, Buffy spent the day in the lounge alternately looking out the window and writing in her diary. Normally, Buffy was not the sort of girl who wasted time admiring scenery. But there was something hypnotic about the way that the arid landscape with its squat, grubby plant life zipped past the train’s windows. Plus, when the train passed through towns that she had accepted jobs in, there was a certain satisfaction to be had from knowing that she had slain vampires there and there and over there too. And oh yeah, that charred ruin had once been the barn-lair of a particularly stupid band of vampires.

 _Burning it down was so much fun! But then, I’ve always liked fire,_ Buffy mused, remembering Lothos' fiery demise. At the back of her mind she absently noted the entrance of two more shifters into the dining car. _It’s just so bright and warm and shimmery. And–_

A hand landed heavily on Buffy’s shoulder.

“You’ll do,” said a masculine voice with a heavy accent. A large hand wrapped itself around Buffy's bicep and jerked her arm roughly, apparently trying to use it as a handle to force her out of her seat. “Come with me.”

"Hands off," Buffy snapped as she stood and twisted into the motion, knocking his hand off of her with one hand while moving to knee him in the groin at the same time. She had the impression of a tall, muscular man with thick, dark hair and even darker eyes. He would have been handsome but for his entitled sneer. She had the impression that he was looking at her the same way that Angelus looked at nuns just before her knee crushed his balls. He made a high pitched, squeaky noise then collapsed onto his side, curling into a little comma of misery.

 _I didn’t hit him **that** hard, _ Buffy thought, rolling her eyes. _Whiner._

“I don’t know who you think you are, but if you touch me again I’ll report you to the police. I don’t know you, I don’t like you, and we won’t be meeting again.”

“I'm sorry, Miss,” interrupted a man’s voice. It had a trace of Giles’ posh English accent. It was hard to hold onto her wrath under such a familiar comfort. “Fernando probably thought you were someone else.”

“He probably thought he could get away with it,” Buffy corrected, her eyes glancing over the rude jerk’s friends. One, a were-something, seemed to be trying to help ‘Fernando’ up while the other was watching Buffy with a terribly earnest expression. “It’s no wonder that he can’t get a date.”

“I take it that you’re not with our group then?” inquired the Englishman.

“No.”

“Ah. Well, we’re dreadfully sorry for the confusion. Nearly everyone in this car is, you see. With our group, I mean.”

“Then they have my condolences.”

The other man choked on his laughter. Smiling wanly, the Englishman said, “Yes. Well. We shall be off, then. Have a lovely holiday.”

Buffy watched them leave. A few minutes later, while she was enjoying her chicken salad and the scenery, a man cleared his throat and asked, "May I sit here?"

Honestly, Buffy only looked up for the accent. She did not regret her decision, despite his _layers_ of tweed. The man was total eye candy.

"Miss?"

"Oh! Uh, yes, go ahead!" Buffy blurted and then regretted it because, hello, vampire! As of that whole, awful Angel/Angelus deal, the vamp nation was totally off limits. But still, there was probably no harm in admiring his dye job and eyes and shoulders. When a frown twitched at his eyebrows, Buffy raised her hands between them and blurted, "Sorry, but I have to ask. What's the name of that color?"

"Color?" he asked carefully. "What color?"

"In your hair! Seriously, as one dyed blonde hussy to another, I've gotta know."

The vampire laughed. It was rich and friendly and felt like a pair of warm hands sliding down the length of her arms. Buffy shuddered, disliking the sensation intensely. It reminded her of drowning.

"Don't do that," she ordered. "Or you can sit somewhere else."

"Oh?" he asked, his voice flat. A bitter smile tugged at his mouth. "I'm told that my voice is one of my crowning beauties."

"Not to me it isn't," Buffy retorted. "I like your hair."

"Alas, it's natural," he said. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table and steepling his fingers together. "Are you going to send me away now, my dear?"

"No one is born with hair that color," Buffy scoffed and took a bite of chicken salad.

"It changed to this color when I was turned. I had... black hair, I believe." He laughed at the look that Buffy shot him. "Honestly!"

"You don't sound very sure."

"It has been a very long time since my hair was anything other than as you see it now," he returned. "What color is yours naturally?"

"Mouse brown," Buffy admitted then waved her utensil in his general direction. "Tell anyone and I'll murder you with this fork."

"Your secret is safe with me," he promised. "Tell me, where did you learn to speak French?"

Buffy froze.

 _French?_ she thought, a trifle frantically. Reviewing the last few minutes in her head, she realized that yes, they _had_ been conversing in French. Their entire conversation had been in French. _Hellmouth-y weirdness strikes again!_

Perhaps mistaking her silence for something other than horrified chagrin (or, perhaps, seeing it for what it was), the vampire said,still in French, "Please, do not be self-conscious. You accent and elocution are both exquisite. If I did not know better, I would think that you had been to Court."

Smiling, Buffy said in French, "I wouldn't think that someone with your skin allergies would enjoy the Sun King's court."

"Ah! You wound me, miss!" the vampire exclaimed, clutching at his heart melodramatically. Despite herself, Buffy giggled. "It is there that I met the love of my life! I will always be fond of Louis-Dieudonne!" Grinning at her, the vampire asked, "How did you know that I learned French there?"

"A feeling?" Buffy replied with a shrug. She stuffed more salad in her mouth to avoid saying anything else, incriminating or otherwise.

The vampire filled the conversational gap with stories from the Sun Court. He told her about attending the theater with the Sun King and the night that the Louvre was given over to the arts and opened to the public. He told her about hunting trips and Versailles and the shocking installment of streetlights and a police force in Paris. And, as he talked, vistas of memory opened up in Buffy's mind. _She_ had never seen these things or been to these places, but the noble that she had been on Halloween a year and a half ago, Lady Julianna, _had_ known them. She had been born there, in Paris, when people who bathed and brushed their teeth regularly and used utensils were considered to have a peculiar interest in hygiene in polite circles and be lunatics to everyone else. Julianna had lived there, grown up there, and probably would have died there had she not met...

"Asher!" Buffy gasped, interrupting a charming anecdote about the Musketeers. "You're _Asher!_ She knew you!"

Really, _really_ well. Buffy's face flushed at the memories of how well Lady Julianna had known the vampire sitting across from her.

"Who knew me?" Asher inquired.

"N-Never mind," Buffy stuttered, who was finding it impossible to make eye contact with the vampire across from her. "It's nothing. Very unimportant. You were saying something about the Mouse-kateers?"

"It is always a delight to discover that one has mutual acquaintances," Asher persisted.

"But we don't! Have shared friends, that is," Buffy blurted. "I had an, uh, aneurism? But it's better now."

 _Worst excuse ever,_ Buffy thought as she shoved several forkfuls of salad into her mouth, the better to shut herself up. Asher peered at her, perhaps waiting for Buffy to continue babbling. When no incriminating statements were forthcoming, he continued his story.

Buffy tried to hold up her end of the conversation, determined not to remember anything else about Asher or how well he had danced, the way he had held Lady Julianna's hand,how he had squirmed and laughed when the Lady Julianna had tickled or licked the back of his knee. Sometimes, he had simply watched Julianna as she went about her business, sewing or drawing or reading aloud, an expression of intense concentration on his face. Buffy had always thought that her relationship with Angel, and their one night together, had been terribly romantic but Lady Julianna's memories of her nights with Asher put that idea to rest. Next to Asher, Angel was a clod.

Julianna had never been ignored or overlooked by Asher. She had never had to beg for his attention or company, even before he had developed a particular interest in her. He had never cared about Julianna's position in society or his or the divide engendered by her being deeply religious and a decent, if somewhat naive and spoiled, person and his status as a ruthless and particularly sleazy creature of the night. Asher had been fun and passionate and, once he had decided that he was in love with Julianna, refused to settle for a star-crossed romance with his lover. He had worked hard to make the grade with her. And just thinking about their sex life made Buffy blush all over.

And, boy howdy, Buffy suddenly had a lot of sex-memories of Asher. In fact, the harder that she tried not to think about the sex-memories, the more memories, sexual and otherwise, that she had of Asher. Finally, Asher must have had enough of her squirrelly behavior because he abruptly broke off his narrative about the squirrels in Paris to say, "I must demand to know what your acquaintance said of me. You have not behaved the same since you realized that we share a social connection."

"Not so much a social connection as a dead one," Buffy groaned. "Look, this is going to sound really, _really_ weird but I'd like to remind you that immortal undead fiends with gold tinsel hair should try to keep an open mind."

"I shall do my best," Asher promised with a faint smile.

"In this country, Halloween is basically Come As You Aren't Night," Buffy began. At Asher's blank look, she added, "Everyone gets dressed up in costumes. Kids run from house to house begging for treats or getting into mischief. Everyone else goes to parties. Not last Halloween but the one before it, I bought an old-fashioned dress from a costume shop. What I didn't know at the time was that the shop's owner had woven certain spells into his costumes so that the wearers literally turned into whatever they had dressed up as. That year, when I dressed up as a noblewoman from the eighteenth century, well, I _became_ an eighteenth century noblewoman. A particular one that was definitely not me, I mean."

"And which of my acquaintances did you become?" Asher asked lightly but his jaw was very tight.

"Lady Julianna?"

Buffy had time to see Asher's eyes widen with surprise. An expression of intense pain crossed his face. It was followed by denial then fury. His expression as cold and hard as marble, Asher slammed his chair back and strode out of the dining compartment. Buffy watched him go.

And then she finished her dinner. She did not see Asher again before they pulled into the St. Louis train station the next morning.


	8. Choices

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Content Notes:** graphic depictions of violence  
>  **Disclaimer:** I have no rights to or within the Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Anita Blake franchises, copyrights, characters or trademarks. This is for fun, not profit.  
>  **Additional Notes:** This fic fills [](http://xgirl2222.dreamwidth.org/profile)[](http://xgirl2222.dreamwidth.org/)**xgirl2222** 's prompt for Wishlist 2012 which I interpreted to mean a Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Anita Blake crossover with a parting, a meeting, and Asher, Jean-Claude, and Buffy. Also fills the "unrequited pining" square on my Hurt/Comfort Bingo card and the "Headache" square on my Cotton Candy Bingo card. Also answers Challenge #6910 (Play by the Rules) and Challenge #4842 (Vampires' Superiority Complex) on the Twisting the Hellmouth Website and partially answers the TTH100_2 Challenge.  
> 

**069\. Choices**

Asher took his temper out on the hapless Warrick who, when Asher had finished working through his excess of emotion, asked, "Do you feel better?"

"No," Asher said unhappily. His fury spent, Asher had only his misery to fall back on.

"Would you like to talk about it?"

"No."

Warrick sat next to Asher, as still and silent as a statue, patiently waiting for Asher's emotions to get the best of him again. Asher hated that Warrick knew him so well. Nevertheless, Asher stayed where he was, feeling the pressure of unspoken words building up in his breast. When the story burst out of Asher in a wrathful torrent, Warrick listened carefully.

"And you are certain that she is not your Julianna returned to you?"

"She kneed Fernando in the balls and told off Padma's servants."

"Definitely not your Julianna," Warrick agreed. "And I am correct in assuming that you originally sat with the young lady to spite Fernando and, through him, his father?"

"You know that you are," Asher growled. "And don't waste your time lecturing me on the nature of sin or wrath or whatever."

Warricks lips pressed together into a thin white line.

"Very well," he said after a moment. "To refocus on the matter at hand, the young lady is not Julianna but she possesses Julianna's memories. I fail to see the cause of your distress."

"She is not Julianna! She's _nothing_ like Julianna!"

"She doesn't need to be," Warrick said gently. "The girl could have become anyone under that foolish enchantment, yet Divine Providence made her into Julianna for a single night."

"And I nowhere nearby to see her, speak with her one last time," Asher said bitterly, looking away from the priest.

"That God's gifts do not always come in forms that are pleasing or even recognizable to lesser eyes does not negate their intrinsic value. Whether you choose to accept this gift is, unfortunately, a choice that you will have to make, Asher."

"Unfortunately?" Asher demanded, turning back to Warrick. "Why unfortunately?"

Warrick's expression was very flat and very bland. Despite himself, Asher grinned.

"Point," he conceded. "Why would I even want to acknowledge this creature? Even if she possesses my beloved's memories, she is _not_ Julianna. I will not settle for a pale imitation of my love."

"Nor should you," Warrick agreed. "But if the story that she told is true and if Julianna's memories still linger within her, then she is all that is left of Julianna in this world. Even if that is not enough to guarantee your regard, I would have thought that you, of all people, would wish to protect your beloved's legacy."

Asher went utterly still, physically and mentally. When the shock receded a bit, he remembered how often he had wished in the time since her death that he had been able to provide Julianna with offspring, that they had met a couple of centuries earlier when he had still been young enough to father children on a mortal woman. When Julianna had died, there had literally been nothing left of her to him, save for some trinkets that the inquisition had neglected to confiscate or burn. Mere possessions could never replace the living warmth of that woman.

But now, in this new century and on this new continent, a piece of Julianna had made its way back into existence. What was left of Julianna was housed in the living warmth of that brash, violent, painfully _young_ American woman where he could reach out and touch it, protect it, converse with it again as he had that very night.

 _She spoke to me in Julianna's language with Julianna's knowledge of it,_ he realized, a painful emotion unfurling in his chest. _That was what frightened her. She knew me, perhaps as Julianna once did. It is as if I have stumbled across Julianna's protégé, confidante, little sister, even._

"You're right!" Asher exclaimed, rising to his feet. "I've been a fool! I must go to the girl and apologize at once! I must beg her forgiveness and become her friend!"

"Slow down," Warrick ordered. He caught Asher's arm in passing. "I said _if_ her story is true and _if_ your human servant's memories still linger within her. You have no proof of either yet."

"But she spoke French! And she knew my name!"

"Neither of which is remarkable," Warrick said placidly. "They teach French to their children on this continent, too. And it is not impossible that she overheard your name from one of our party. It would be better to verify these facts before you proceed."

"How?" Asher barked, frustrated. "Warrick, what if she leaves before I ever even learn her name?"

"You will find her again. I have no doubt of that," Warrick replied and Asher settled beneath the other's calm faith in him. "Who else knew your Julianna as intimately as you do?"

"No, Warrick," Asher denied, his lips suddenly cold. Denial and icy rage threatened to consume him. "Not him. _Never_ him."

"I have no doubt that your young miss now knows you quite well," Warrick said gently. "It must be someone who could see the pieces of Julianna in this woman but with whom the woman herself is unfamiliar. There is only one who knew Julianna so well as you did."

_"No!"_

"You must ask yourself," Warrick said quietly. "Which you wish to pursue more: your vendetta against Jean-Claude or this opportunity to find a part of the one whom you have loved and lost. Decide quickly, Asher, for we will arrive in St. Louis tomorrow."

As soon as Warrick framed his choices, Asher knew which one he would choose. Knowing a thing and accepting it, however, were two separate matters. He spent the rest of the night raging and angsting.

The next night, Asher awoke feeling refreshed, energized, and ready to go make the acquaintance of Julianna's legacy. He felt better than he had in centuries.

The girl, however, was already long gone.

Fortunately, Asher was more than capable of adapting to the situation at hand. His priorities firmly established, Asher adjusted his original plan to account for this unforeseen circumstance.

 _One way or another,_ Asher thought grimly, _I must be the first to greet Jean-Claude._

Taking Jean-Claude's citadel was easy. Only a few were both loyal and brave enough to fight for their absent master. When the resistance had been subdued or all but slain, as in the case of the Viking, Asher discovered Jean-Claude's location from his favorite wolf. After Asher, with all appearances of ill-humor, allowed the others to bully him into doing his duty as Belle Morte's emissary and accepted the task of going to retrieve Jean-Claude, Yvette claimed her pet wolf, Padma sequestered himself with the local were-animals' leaders, and the Traveler appropriated Jean-Claude's bedroom in which to enjoy his newest body. Warrick, who kept vigil over the fallen Viking, carefully ignored Asher.

Unnoticed and unmissed, Asher stormed out of the Circus of the Damned. When he was far enough from Jean-Claude's tacky home, Asher's pace slowed. He used his time alone to calm his emotions and remind himself as to his true purpose. It had been a very long time since Asher had goals of his own.

Asher had not been certain if Jean-Claude had been Master of the City long enough to be entirely proficient with the powers that came with the position but he had certainly expected Jean-Claude to notice his presence as soon as he stepped into the restaurant. Even as a fledgling, Jean-Claude had been highly proficient at feeling out those who had either recently fed his lust or who might, one way or another, be amenable to feeding it in the near future.

Jean-Claude was oblivious.

After explaining to the maitre d'hôtel that he was embarrassed to admit it but he was waiting on a fickle, married woman, Asher was allowed to wait. Alone, he was quickly forgotten about by the staff. It was simple to twist the shadows further about himself and slip into the dining area, undetected.

The restaurant's decor was tacky and, as the night wore on, Asher was surprised that Jean-Claude found his companion to his tastes. From his own observations, Anita Blake seemed to have little patience with Jean-Claude and even less with his foibles. She was coarse, even crude, and overly aggressive, even to her beloved. She scowled most ferociously.

For his own part, Jean-Claude was not merely besotted with his human servant but actually akin to a young mortal man in the grips of his first love. He hung on the woman's every ill-chosen word, delighted in her scowls as if they were smiles, and was crushed by her rejections. Asher found it nauseating.

And laughable. It was one thing to don a sheep's skin to get closer to the prey. It was something else to show one's best face to the person that one loved best. But it was another thing entirely when a creature as old and depraved as Jean-Claude forgot what he was and started believing his own lies.

When the woman signaled for a doggy bag, Asher took that as his cue to slip back to the waiting area, make his sheepish apologies to the maitre d'hôtel, and leave the restaurant. In the parking lot, Asher positioned himself to his best advantage and waited. To calm his nerves, he lit a cigarette, taking solace in the familiar ritual of tapping out a smoke, finding his lighter, and lighting it. The first drag of bitter, nicotine rich smoke into his lungs was the purest form of solace that he had known in recent times.

Presently, he heard the clacking of a woman's heels against the pavement and Miss Blake's loud, harsh voice. Asher stubbed out his cigarette against the lamppost and dropped the butt to the pavement. Despite himself (and the lighting), Asher leaned forward in anticipation.

Jean-Claude was as impossibly beautiful as Asher remembered him to be.

To Asher's consternation (and immense disappointment), Jean-Claude saw Asher, rather than sensing him. When he did, Jean-Claude went still between one step and the next. Cutting off his servant's monologue, he gasped, "Asher."

"Jean-Claude," Asher said, stepping forward so that the human, who was peering into the dark, could see him. As soon as she did, the woman tensed. Smiling maliciously, Asher added in English, "And this must be the lovely Anita Blake. Word of your conquest has traveled, Jean-Claude. When I heard the rumors, that the ever so accomplished Jean-Claude had fallen in love with a virago, I laughed harder than I have in centuries. I had not realized that such rumors could possibly be _true."_

Jean-Claude's carefully blank expression and twitching fingertips were like the nectar of the gods to Asher. The human servant scowled at him, crossed her arms over her chest, and snapped, "Not that it's any of your business but I _wasn't_ a virgin when I first slept with Jean-Claude!"

Bemused, Asher studied the woman. Upon seeing that she was in earnest, he leered at her and replied, "Chaste perhaps, but definitely not virginal."

The woman dropped her leftovers, hiked up her dress, and pulled out a gun. Next to her, Jean-Claude looked deeply embarrassed. Smirking, Asher focused his attention on Jean-Claude's lovely face.

"You have been playing the mortal lover so convincingly, mon ami, that even you have begun to believe it. A Master of the City cannot afford to neglect his duties, Jean-Claude."

Jean-Claude stiffened, his eyes going distant as he sought the connections that were his right as Master. Asher waited. Perhaps becoming bored, his servant pulled up her dress again to replace her weapon in its banded holster.

"What has happened?" Jean-Claude snapped, his accent thickening. He tucked his hands behind his back. They were probably shaking. Next to him, the human yanked up her skirt again and pulled out her weapon. She aimed it in Asher's general direction. After a moment's consideration, Asher decided to ignore her.

"Have you found yourself cut off from your minions, Jean-Claude?" Asher asked, truly interested. The Traveler could never have blocked a true master's call to his minions. That he could sever or block Jean's connections implied that, perhaps, Jean was not truly worthy of his seat. He might not be able to hold it. For the first time in centuries, Asher felt a tendril of _unease_ for Jean-Claude, who was normally too canny to allow himself to be backed into so untenable a position.

"Where are they?" Jean-Claude demanded.

"In due course, I will take you to them," Asher promised. "Summon your chauffeur, Jean-Claude."

"I do the driving," scoffed the servant. "Turn around and kiss the jeep."

"What?" Asher asked, genuinely shocked. That _had_ to be an American idiom. It simply had to be.

"I can't let you sit in my car, not knowing if you have a weapon on you or not," she said.

"And if I refuse?" Asher asked, more from interest than because he intended to refuse. He needed Jean-Claude's cooperation far more than he needed the pleasure of irritating Anita Blake who was, at that very moment, waving her gun at him in what Asher presumed was meant to be a menacing fashion. Feeling distinctly un-menaced, Asher smirked at her.

"If you shoot me," he taunted, "Jean-Claude will have to pay tribute to my mistress for my death. She will, of course, wish to take from him something that he values. Something like _you,_ I'd imagine. Of course, this is assuming that you and he are not killed outright for missing your appointment with the Council's other representatives."

"Anita," Jean-Claude pleaded. "Please let this go. We have larger concerns."

"I won't," Miss Blake said determinedly. Asher was interested to hear the change in verbs. "This is the guy that you said put in a claim on my life."

"And the Council refused him. Asher will not go against our laws."

"Well, I _might,"_ Asher disagreed, enjoying Jean-Claude's thoroughly exasperated look. It was not Asher's responsibility to make things easier between Jean-Claude and his human servant. "But not for the mere pleasure of killing one such as _you."_

Favoring Asher with a truly ugly look, Jean-Claude's servant gritted, "We're not going anywhere until I search him."

"Who is the master here, Jean-Claude?" jeered Asher, even though he had never in his life ordered Julianna to do anything. Of course, Julianna had never once actively worked to make an already difficult situation worse for Asher. Not even at the end, when-

Asher brutally cut that line of thinking off.

 _Focus,_ he ordered himself. _You're here for Julianna's legacy, not Jean-Claude's pain or his servant's rage._

"Never mind," he said roughly, before Jean-Claude could answer. "I've grown bored of this. You wished to search me? How?"

Asher tried to pretend that the look of unadulterated relief and gratitude that Jean-Claude sent him meant nothing to him.

He followed the woman's directions and positioned himself accordingly. When the woman pettily kicked at Asher's ankles, forcing his legs wider, Asher took a deep breath and tried to imagine that he had a lit cigarette clamped between his lips.

It was not much help.

When she groped him, under the pretext of looking for weapons when Asher himself was a living weapon, he pretended to gasp and moan. It was amusing to see the woman scamper away from him.

 _Finally,_ she deemed him worthy of sitting in her wretched vehicle but she insisted that he sit in the backseat and behind Jean-Claude. Asher wondered if she was at all aware of how easy it would be for him to kill her in the car's confined space. In the interest of moving things along, he kept that observation to himself.

Asher gave his initial directions to Anita in English then, to Jean-Claude, he said in French, "Belle has given me autonomy in regards to her proxy vote. I had thought to use it to torment you and then vote against you, but you have always had the devil's own luck, Jean-Claude. On my way to this city, I ran across something that interests me more than your suffering."

"This thing must be valuable indeed," Jean-Claude murmured without turning around. "Is it within my power to give it to you?"

"No," Asher replied. "But it is within your power to authenticate it for me. If I pursue it, I shall do so on my own merits."

"How shall I be of assistance?" asked Jean-Claude, finally twisting around in his seat. He looked ridiculous straining against his seatbelt.

"I merely wish for you help me find a woman and speak with her. I wish for you to reminisce about the old days with her and draw your own conclusions regarding her responses. Afterwards, I wish to know what you honestly think of her. That is all. And, in return, I will vote in your favor, Jean-Claude."

Jean-Claude regarded him suspiciously for a moment then hitched his shoulders up in a shrug.

"Very well," he finally agreed as his servant shrilled a warning at him to turn around and sit properly in his seat. She said it in English, her shoulders tight and her hands gripping the steering wheel unforgivingly. Despite his servant's obvious dislike of both his current posture and being left out of the conversation, Jean-Claude lingered a moment longer to say, "I shall do as you wish. What is this woman's name?"

"I do not know," Asher said with real regret. "But she is either within this city's limits or she was this morning. I shall draw a sketch for your minions."

"Very well," Jean-Claude agreed as his servant threatened to pull the car over. "I will find this woman, meet with her, and give you an honest report of my observations. That is all that you require?"

"Yes."

Jean-Claude nodded and turned around, sitting properly in his seat again. Aside from directions to the Circus of the Damned, Asher did not speak to either Jean-Claude or his servant again, despite the way that she was staring at him in one of her mirrors. It was irksome and infuriating but Asher had more important things to worry about than what Jean-Claude's servant thought of him.

When they arrived at the circus, Asher made his excuses, departed, and returned to shadow Jean-Claude and Anita Blake through the Circus. In silence, he observing as the woman caused nearly as many problems as she purportedly solved. She was certainly powerful, but she was also untrained, crass, and ignorant, possibly even abysmally stupid. Such traits, especially when coupled with a delight in brutality, had seldom appealed to Jean over the centuries. Anita Blake was as much a liability as an asset.

In previous centuries, Jean-Claude had never bothered with such mixed blessings. He had always preferred that on which he could rely. Of the two of them, Asher had always been the gambler.

 _What has happened to him that he would reduce himself to taking such a poor gamble as this?_ Asher wondered as Jean-Claude and Anita Blake treated with the Traveler, who, as the eldest of the Council members present, spoke on behalf of the Council's delegation.

Eventually, it was decided that all of the grievances that lay between their parties could be forgiven if Jean-Claude provided a feast worthy of the Council. While they haggled over who was and who was not a potential offering, Asher tried to determine if it had been her unbridled power, the thrill of a romantic pursuit, or sheer desperation that had persuaded Jean-Claude as to the desirability of being linked to such a creature as Anita Blake for the next few centuries, if not eternity.

When Jean-Claude and his minions retreated from the circus, Asher was still undecided.

Much later, near sunrise, Warrick found Asher as he prepared himself to rest for the day. Warrick clapped his hand on Asher shoulder and said, "For what it's worth, I am proud of you, my old friend."

Asher smiled.

It was worth quite a bit to Asher.

The next night, rather than wearing anything from Jean-Claude's wardrobe, Asher elected to wear his own clothes to the peace accord: a red linen shirt in warm, jewel tones, charcoal gray trousers, dark socks, and black shoes. When Asher arrived, he enjoyed the way that Jean-Claude's eyes lingered on him. Anita, who was definitely wearing a dress chosen for her by Jean-Claude, scowled at Asher. Since that seemed to be her default expression, Asher tried not to read too much into it.

When all of the Council members or their proxies were assembled and the necessary verbiage had been exchanged regarding the fact that all trespasses would be forgiven and forgotten after this evening, Asher had first choice of the offerings presented.

"I am hungry," Asher announced as Anita and Jean-Claude exchanged a flurry of sharp, hasty whispers. "I wish for blood, willingly given. Not from you," he added when Anita stepped forward, towards him, with an expression that was half expectation and half resignation on her face. Delighting in Anita's obvious affront, Asher nodded at the blond werewolf and said, "From you."

The boy, who was pale and trembling and watching Yvette as a mouse might watch a hawk, stumbled in his haste to turn toward Asher. He stared at Asher with impossibly wide eyes. Asher could practically see him wonder if Asher was like Yvette.

"No!" shrieked Yvette. "I want him! He was to be mine!"

"First choice goes to Belle Morte," Asher said sharply to the other vampire. "Or, in her absence, to her proxy. It is not my fault that you did not think to secure a promise from me in advance to pass over this one. Or have you forgotten the rules?"

Furious, Yvette lashed at Asher with her power. Even though the wash of her power was as a rain falling upon a duck, Asher lashed back, delighting in the way that Yvette staggered. Her cheek was sliced open, the wound wide and bloodless. Then Warrick was between them, interposing himself between Asher and his mistress.

"Peace," said the Traveler, his borrowed eyes firmly fixed on Jean-Claude. "We all know that as Belle is the progenitor of Jean-Claude's line, she has first claim. Or, in her absence, her proxy. Behave yourself, Yvette, lest a complaint be registered with your master regarding your recent lapses in decorum."

When Yvette nodded and lapsed into a sulky silence, Asher turned his attention to the young man in time to hear the tail end of an argument between Jean-Claude's human servant and his animal to call.

"He's done this hundreds of times," the brunet werewolf asserted. "Once more isn't going to kill him."

"He doesn't have to if he doesn't want to," the woman hissed, clutching the blond werewolf's hand.

Asher held out one hand to the blond werewolf and said in English, "Come. I share a line with your master, not Yvette. You will enjoy this very much, I think."

The brunet werewolf clapped the blond wolf on the shoulder and wished him luck. Anita shot Asher a poisonous look and told the blond werewolf that she would come with him, if he wished.

"Non," Asher said sharply, less because he objected to having an audience and more because he objected to Anita's seeming ability to make everything about herself. It was terribly annoying to one who still sincerely wished to kill her simply because she existed while his darling Julianna did not. Fortunately for Anita, Asher had his own priorities.

Uncertain, the blond werewolf looked toward Jean-Claude who dipped his chin in the slightest of nods. Reluctantly, the werewolf shook off Anita's hand and began the trudge toward Asher. By the time that he crossed the space between them, the young man was shivering so violently that Asher could hear his teeth clicking together.

"Take courage," Asher murmured as the werewolf slipped his sweaty hand into Asher's waiting one. "This will not hurt."

It was not always so, of course, but it was easy to be kind when his donor was so obviously terrified. Easier still when that kindness came as cruelty to another, one that he hated.

The werewolf whined piteously.

Resisting the impulse to just force the boy's head back, bite him, and be done with it already, Asher raised his other hand to gently stroke his fingers through the werewolf's short hair then smoothed them down the back of the werewolf's neck. Under the guise of rubbing one boney shoulder, Asher gathered the werewolf close. With his blunt front teeth, Asher lightly bit at the man's mouth, as one wolf might do to another in play, then rubbed his shaven cheek along the man's own, as was the custom among friendly werewolves.

Under Asher's calculated assault, the blond werewolf shuddered, sighed, and relaxed fully against Asher, becoming a still, trusting weight against Asher's chest. When Asher playfully nipped at the corner of the werewolf's jaw and nudged him with his nose, the werewolf obligingly tipped his head back and to the side, leaving the taut lines of his throat exposed for Asher's bite. Asher allowed the werewolf to enjoy it (but not too much). Afterwards, the boy lay snuggled against Asher's chest, supported there by an arm around his waist and another around his shoulders.

"How boring," Yvette pouted.

"I think the same thing every time you speak," Asher agreed cheerfully. Yvette scowled at him. "Nevertheless, it seems appropriate to ask for your choice among the offerings, Yvette."

"I want the other werewolf," Yvette announced and smirked at Padma's scowl. To his credit, Jean-Claude's animal to call simply nodded.

"Jean-Claude," the Traveler declared. Asher doubted that he missed the way that Anita's grip tightened on her master or the way that she scowled at Jean-Claude when he simply inclined his head in acceptance of the Traveler's decree. Asher also very much doubted that the Traveler cared.

"The Rat King," sulked Padma.

"He's off the table," Anita immediately replied. "He's an observer, only."

"Then I'll take you," Padma said silkily.

Asher was unsurprised when Anita refused, point blank. The peace negotiations degraded into power plays, dramatic dialogue, and violence after that. The part where Warrick immolated himself, Yvette, and Padma was a surprise, though.

Despite knowing that hundreds, if not thousands, of vampires had died or would die as a result of Padma's demise, Asher only ached for Warrick's loss. Warrick had been prudish, rigid, overly forgiving, and prone to bouts of self-abuse. He had frequently mortified his flesh as penance for being turned. And his unwavering attachment to Yvette had been unfortunate. But he was, beneath his flaws, a good man. Asher had met surprisingly few of those in recent centuries. Warrick would be deeply missed.

Asher missed Warrick but he was glad enough to see the Traveler depart. True to his word, Jean-Claude and Asher set about tracking down Asher's mysterious mademoiselle using a lovingly sketched and colored drawing of her face and Jean-Claude's unconscionably large wolf pack.

The werewolves tracked her to first the shopping district and then to a three star hotel. Careful inquiries gleaned that her name was Buffy Summers and that she had been sporadically riding the trains as she crisscrossed the western half of the United States. She hailed from a small, prosaic village called Sunnydale, California and in the fall she would be attending the University of California at its Sunnydale campus. Much closer in both time and location, the ticket office at the St. Louis Fairgrounds was holding a ticket for her, good for the third and fourth of July.

Charming Jean-Claude arranged for a pair of tickets for himself and Asher. While Padma's son was tortured and murdered under Anita's watchful eye, Jean-Claude and Asher attended the fair.


	9. Fair

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  **Content Notes:** graphic depictions of violence  
>  **Disclaimer:** I have no rights to or within the Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Anita Blake franchises, copyrights, characters or trademarks. This is for fun, not profit.  
>  **Additional Notes:** This fic fills [](http://xgirl2222.dreamwidth.org/profile)[**xgirl2222**](http://xgirl2222.dreamwidth.org/)'s prompt for Wishlist 2012 which I interpreted to mean a Buffy the Vampire Slayer/Anita Blake crossover with a parting, a meeting, and Asher, Jean-Claude, and Buffy. Also fills the "unrequited pining" square on my Hurt/Comfort Bingo card and the "Headache" square on my Cotton Candy Bingo card. Also answers Challenge #6910 (Play by the Rules) and Challenge #4842 (Vampires' Superiority Complex) on the Twisting the Hellmouth Website and partially answers the TTH100_2 Challenge.

**093\. Fair**

St. Louis was a disaster. Aside from anything else, it seemed to be some sort of supernatural hotspot. Every time Buffy turned around, there was another supernatural creature, usually a werewolf. If riding the train had been uncomfortable, the city was a form of torture.

_I’d swear there was a Hellmouth under this city if I didn’t know better,_ Buffy thought with a frown as she pushed her way through the crowded fair grounds. It was the third of July but that particular fair had promised two nights of exploding goodness. As someone who used a lot of fire in her personal and professional affairs, Buffy had a very strong love of fireworks. _Maybe Giles can do a bit of research and just double check?_

The fair had seemed like a good idea but her Slayer senses were jangling and giving her a headache. On every side, vampires, were-creatures, and demons pressed in against her amongst the crush of humanity. Buffy knew logically that she was fine and that she was in no immediate danger from being surrounded. But the situation still made her hands ache for the weight of her favorite sword or the smoothness of Mr. Pointy's shaft.

Irritated, but determined to see her fireworks, Buffy headed for the edges of the crowded fairgrounds. Once there, she found a lovely grassy rise to sit on. It was dark and far too small to be a hill but it gave Buffy an excellent view of her surroundings. And it was far enough away from everyone else that the nonhumans were just a slight pressure against the very edges of her senses.

Buffy was admiring the bright lights and the sound of hundreds of voices overlapping when her Slayer senses started jangling again. Scowling, Buffy looked around to see two vampires sauntering towards her spot. She called, “Go away. Get your own hill.”

It came out in English, thank everything holy.

They paused, staring at her through the darkness. Defiant, Buffy stared back.

The one on the left had long, curly black hair and dark blue eyes. He also seemed to think he was a pirate from the late eighteenth century. The other one was Asher with his lovely golden hair and pale blue eyes. Sadly, he was still a walking fashion disaster, this time dressed in a long, black duster and a tweed suit. Buffy suppressed the urge to look to see if he had leather elbow patches on his suit jacket.

_All of that hotness **wasted** on men who can’t even remotely dress themselves, _ she thought with a sigh.

After a beat, in which the vampires stared at her expectantly, they kept marching up the hillside as if she had never told them to shove off. Buffy scowled.

“This is a personal moment," Buffy called, still speaking English. "So go find your own hill. Please.”

They stopped far too close to Buffy for her comfort.

“Darling, this area is open to the public,” the one with dark, curly hair said in French. Even though his expression was blank, his voice thrilled up and down her spine and tugged at her libido. It reminded Buffy unpleasantly of a dream in which she had let Lothos tie red ribbons into her hair. “We’re free to come here to enjoy the fireworks, the same as you.”

Scowling, Buffy leapt to her feet. Her hands brushed up and down her arms, as if she could brush away the touch of his voice.

“Don’t do that!” Buffy snapped, automatically switching to French too. She took a step back. If things became unpleasant, she intended to have enough freedom of motion to kick their asses. “That’s my least favorite vampire trick _ever.”_

And after months of laying the smack down on deranged were-creatures, being rotted on, and avoiding the Finger Flicks of Death, that was saying something.

Asher arched an eyebrow at his friend who shrugged at him. They both turned to stare at Buffy, as if they were waiting for something. She tried to ignore it and them.

_I know that dark-haired one from somewhere,_ Buffy thought. _But where?_

“I’m taking my vote back,” Buffy blurted as she suddenly remembered where she had seen him. “You don’t deserve to win the this year's Hottest Vampire in America. Your personality is much too uncute.”

The Master of the City gaped at her. Asher laughed. It was flat and normal and Buffy decided that she liked it. She still refused to directly look either one in the eyes, just in case. There was no way that she was going to go out like poor Kendra, without even a last fight.

“Pardon us, miss,” Jean-Claude replied, his eyes narrowing and his mouth tightening. “But your own manners were far from cordial.”

“I was in a certain sort of mood but it's gone now,” Buffy informed him. "You killed it."

Asher smiled. “So were we. As you already know, I'm Asher and this is Jean-Claude. I'm afraid that I did not think to ask for your name the last time we met.”

“You may call me Anne.”

“Very well,” Asher said pleasantly, his expression as blank as Jean-Claude’s. “Are you waiting for your friends, Anne?”

Buffy snorted.“It would be a long wait if I were. They’re still in California.”

“Your family, perhaps?” Asher persisted.

Buffy's right hand moved to rest over the small of her back where Mr. Pointy always laid in wait for naughty vampires. Warily, she asked, “Why do you want to know?”

“It's merely small talk,” soothed Asher. “I meant no harm in asking. We merely wished to determine if our presence was going to be disruptive.”

She eyed them suspiciously for another moment or two then said, “You can stay. But you’d better not get too close to me.”

Asher inclined his head. “As you wish.”

The fireworks were spectacular, even if she ended up watching them with two master vampires. Buffy was delighted by the sight of red, white, and blue explosions against the night sky. She clasped her hands together when shrieking golden rockets flipped in circles and gasped when the explosions formed the blue stars and red and white stripes of the flag. The finale lit up the night sky. It was brilliant even if it left her temporarily deaf.

When the vampires tried to ask her out for coffee, Buffy politely declined. Humming, she instead sauntered back to the nearest bus station and the crush of humanity that was sure to be there.

The promise of another set of fireworks left Buffy in an amazingly good mood the next day despite the lack of slaying opportunities in the immediate area.

_There’s obviously at least one decent vampire hunter in Missouri,_ Buffy thought. _And there aren't any listings in the city. The pirate must run a tight ship. I can't afford to stay here too much longer, then._

That night, when Buffy went out to the fairgrounds again, she discovered that the vampiric duo had already claimed her spot.

“Toddle off, darling,” Asher said cheerfully. “This place is taken.”

Buffy flipped her hair at him and then joined them anyway. She was careful to stand close enough to be sociable but not so close that they would have an easy time ripping her throat out.

_Life lessons learned in Sunnydale are already serving me well._

“This area is open to the public. I could stand here and stare at you two all night if I wanted to.”

To demonstrate her rather frivolous point, Buffy stared at them rather intently. The Master of the City looked like he had just stepped off of the cover of a bodice-ripping romance novel. Asher still looked like he let Giles pick out his clothes for him. Staring at their poor fashion choices was actually rather irritating. Buffy switched to admiring their hair and eyes and the shape of their jaws without ever directly looking either one in the eyes.

_They're both really handsome. For vampires, which I don’t date anymore because, as history has already shown, down that road lays badness. It's a shame that Asher always covers up at least half of his face. Maybe he’d be willing to tuck his hair behind his ear so that I can see all of it?_ Buffy thought as she watched the visible corner of Asher’s mouth turn down into a grimace. If Buffy’s vision was anything less than Slayerly, she never would have seen it in the dark. _Not that wanting to admire their pretty-ness is the same as wanting to tap them. It isn't. Really. Especially since I already know how fantastic tapping Asher would be. Bad thoughts! Bad Buffy!_

“Enough,” Asher snapped, tilting his head so that his hair fell more thickly over that one side of his face.

Buffy blinked. Without her conscious intent, her eyes drifted over to the Master of the City. She arched her eyebrows at him.

“Asher dislikes being stared at,” explained Monsieur Pirate Shirt.

“Geez, you’re touchy. I was just admiring him – I mean, his hair! I was admiring his hair! Again!”

_And now the vampires are staring at me. Again,_ Buffy thought, her cheeks burning. The distinct lack of blood lust, horror, or terror in their eyes made Buffy even more uncomfortable. _Way to go mouth. No more talking for you._

She turned to stare at the fairgrounds, her other senses remaining highly attuned to the vampires. They did nothing. Absolutely nothing.

_Why doesn’t the ground ever open up when you need it to?Sure, things are always rumbling and splitting open when I’ve got plans or dates or whatever. But now, when I really need a disaster of epic proportions, I’ve got nothing! Not even a breeze! And –_ An explosion ripped through the air. When white and blue sparks burst into existence overhead, Buffy breathed a sigh of relief. _Thank you, fireworks!_

The Master of the City waited until after the fireworks to ask, “Have you had anything to eat, miss?”

Buffy hesitated. “Not recently.”

The man’s smile was positively charming. “Allow us to treat you to dinner.”

Buffy narrowed her eyes at him. St. Louis’ master tilted his head so that his lovely dark hair fell across his forehead as sweetly as Angel’s ever did.

_Do vampires practice that move? Did he steal it from Angel? Or did Angel steal it from him?_

“My mother always said not to get in the car with strangers.”

"Ah, but we're no longer strangers, miss," Jean-Claude countered. "We’ve watched fireworks together."

Buffy huffed a laugh. "I'm still not getting into a car with you."

"Then perhaps we can meet somewhere?" Jean-Claude suggested. "Do you like Mexican food?"

Buffy giggled. _Mexican food with French vampires!_

“Is there a problem?” Asher asked.

Buffy shook her head. “No. It's fine. Mexican food sounds wonderful.”

Jean-Claude gave Buffy directions to a nearby restaurant named _La Cantina_ , promised to meet them there and then disappeared into the shadows, leaving Buffy with Asher and a rather awkward silence.

“So, what’s he really want?” Buffy asked as she began to lead Asher back to the nearest bus stop. Asher followed her lead, his stare disconcertingly blank. It made Buffy miss the Aurelian line. Sure they were crazy, soulless, and evil, but you never had to wonder what they were thinking.

“You agreed to a meeting despite being suspicious of Jean-Claude’s intentions?”

“He promised me free food. And I’m curious. And, hey, eating Mexican food with French vampires! I'm not going to pass up that sort of opportunity. But mostly, I’m going for the free food.”

Asher laughed, his face coming alive with his good humor. Despite herself, Buffy smiled back at him.

“He is merely curious. It is rare for someone to be so entirely uninterested in him.”

“Most people are turned off by rudeness, blatant hostility, and general standoffishness.”

“Jean-Claude sees it as a challenge. Such things are aphrodisiacs to him.”

Buffy groaned. She slapped the palm of her hand against her forehead.

“It’s not fair! Why do I always have to attract the crazy ones? Isn’t he with that short, angry-looking woman? The one with the permanent scowl?”

Asher’s laughter rolled over her. If his previous laughs had been pleasant, this one was like the best massage ever. Her muscles relaxing under the pleasurable sensation, Buffy sighed, “I really wish you wouldn’t do that.”

"I am sorry," Asher said. He even sounded like he meant it. "It is an ingrained habit by now to showcase my remaining beauties."

His bitterness bit at her skin. Buffy rolled her eyes.

“Yeah, if you’re blind, maybe. Look, stop fishing for compliments. You’re a honey. I know it. You know it. But if you keep making me tell you about it, my head’s going to explode, which would suck. But, hey, on the bright side, it’d kill that outfit.”

Asher's laughter was an odd thing, made up of equal parts wistfulness and wry amusement.

“You dislike these clothes?” he asked.

Buffy tapped his forearm with the tip of her forefinger then led him away from the fairgrounds’ parking lot and toward the nearest road.

“Until I met you, I thought only middle-aged English men who worked in libraries wore tweed.” She squinted at him. “You weren’t ever secretly middle-aged and English, were you?”

“No, I’m afraid not. I hesitate to ask, but we seem to be heading away from the parking lot.”

"I took the bus," Buffy said. She enjoyed Asher's look of abject horror. _This is gonna be so much fun!_

It was more fun than Buffy had anticipated since the bus was packed. She got squashed against Asher's chest where she guiltily enjoyed the shape and feel of him and maybe shimmied a bit more than she needed to when the bus went over bumps or into potholes. For his part, Asher was as pliable as granite. He looked nearly ready to weep with relief when Buffy announced that this was their stop and stretched over to pull the cord.

They walked a block, turned right, walked another two, and there was a tiny restaurant named _La Cantina._ It had twinkling Christmas lights up in its windows. Jean-Claude, who was waiting for them outside, smiled at them in greeting.

"I didn't think that your sort of vampire could eat," Buffy said after a waiter seated them. She was perusing the menu. So was Jean-Claude.

"We cannot," he said regretfully. "But I enjoy the scents nonetheless. Do you like soup?"

In short order, Buffy found herself bartering with Jean-Claude as to her menu choices while Asher watched them with an indulgent smile. As the Slayer, the calories were unimportant. And, since they were fighting over food, winning was unimportant. It was more the joy of a conflict, no matter how mundane. At the close of negotiations, Buffy leaned back in her seat and grinned at Jean-Claude, who grinned back at her.

_Fighting and one of the two Hs,_ Buffy thought contently, her thoughts drifting to a long ago conversation with Faith. A heartbeat later, Buffy decided that it would probably be highly inappropriate to kiss either vampire. _And maybe a conflict of interests. And insane._

Across from her the two vampires across from her began to reminiscence. She listened as Jean-Claude and Asher bickered about something that happened in Spain in 1702.

"It was your fault and you know it, Jean-Claude," Buffy finally decided, as a memory came clear. "If you hadn't set fire to that prince's summer villa-"

"Accidentally!" Jean-Claude protested with utterly false innocence.

"Intentionally," Buffy said sternly. "Which, by the way, you had no business visiting in the first place."

"I had business matters to discuss with the prince."

"With his _wife,"_ Buffy corrected. "Not that I think you two did much talking until the prince walked in on you going at it."

Jean-Claude grinned. "He could have joined us."

"Not everyone is as easy as you and Asher," Buffy replied and then froze as other memories of Jean-Claude, memories that were also not hers, opened up to her mind's eye. Across from her, Asher looked unspeakably smug. Jean-Claude looked stunned. For herself, Buffy felt like she might melt from the heat of her blush. Despite that, Buffy managed to aim a glare at Asher. " Vampires are _evil._ You did this on purpose, didn't you?"

Grinning triumphantly, Asher asked, "So you remember Jean-Claude, too?"

Buffy squeezed her eyes shut. Behind her eyelids, she could still see Asher and Jean-Claude laughing while naked and crammed into an old-fashioned bathtub together.

"I do _now,"_ she grumbled. When the Asher and Jean-Claude from Buffy's memories began kissing each other and woefully dry Julianna (and, since she experienced the memories from Julianna's perspective, it seemed like they were kissing Buffy herself), Buffy opened her eyes. She scrubbed her hands across her face. "Ohhh, boy, do I remember him now. Why would you do this to me?"

"Are the memories so unpleasant?" Asher demanded, drawing back sharply.

"They aren't _mine!_ " Buffy snapped. "I shouldn't know anything about your knees or how he got the scars on his back or the sounds that - or _anything else_. I should know absolutely nothing about either of you! I was happier when all I knew from Julianna was a bunch of languages and a few useful skills!"

Buffy slammed her chair back and stormed out of the restaurant, ignoring Asher's shout to her or Jean-Claude's sharp words with Asher. Later that night, she caught the first train to anywhere.


End file.
